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by drawkbox
3610 days ago
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I agree the market has a hard time justifying R&D and that is a problem. That is why small companies/startups can disrupt and innovate faster. Another way is like Amazon, they just spend all the profit back on R&D and prevent much of this profit/growth talk, it stays focused on competition and future goals. They are in a constant state of R&D by reinvesting profit. Spending on R&D should be seen as good in a tech world where you must stay ahead, not as losses. If you are a big tech company and not spending on R&D, expect that to be short-lived. |
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Amazon is great at this kind of R&D, because Bezos seems to spend all of his free cycles asking himself if there's something else Amazon can do to make money. So Amazon R&D is primarily return-led.
No one else works quite like that. Google seems to have thrown a lot of money at R&D, but it's not obvious how much of a return it's going to generate. Apple and MS are in the same boat.
MS does very cool research, but mostly lacks the management to turn the research into viable products. There's a huge disconnect between the products MS could be shipping, and the products MS is shipping.
Apple has been spending more on R&D, but seems to be marketing and image-led - possibly based on the assumption that's how Jobs worked. (He didn't.)
Alphabet R&D seems engineering-led - which is great for engineers, but isn't a famously effective way to find new customers and generate more income.