Brain drain in tech's future?

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The problem is...

a disconnect between supply and demand.

Sure, few of the movers and shakers in computer science have
PhD - but they're all business guys and most of them didn't
invent the systems they sell. Gates, to take one example, was
smart enough to see an opportunity (that's an understatement:
he's one of the great business predators). But he didn't write
DOS (that was done by a PhD...) - he bought it off White Pine and
then tweaked and marketed it. He didn't write windows either.
And so it goes. I'm not picking on Gates: the same is true for
most business leaders. They market and sell innovative
technology created by other people.

And that's where the disconnect is. Salaries and benefits are
decided generally at the executive level. R&D is done lower down
the tree. The trouble is, research is invisible until it's turned into
a product. Once it's a product, it doesn't belong to R&D
anymore. Despite the fact that most new products actually come
out of R&D, corporate accounting usually treats R&D purely as a
loss-maker.

Market forces ONLY work if there is a direct connection between
supply and demand, when there is a disconnect, you inevitably
get distortions. The problem is clear - but the problem results
from people making perfectly rational decisons. Businesses
offshore and don't support R&D because financially it makes
sense to do so *right*now*. Sure, there might be problems later
on, but the person looking at that today will have already made
the rational decision to lock in profits right now instead of
*maybe* take larger profits in the future.

cheers, Mark

Posted by: markdoc.geo   Posted on: 04/11/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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