From: mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Idiotic Japan Bashing
Date: 24 Jan 93 19:07:51 GMT
Organization: Oracle Corporation
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In article <30587@castle.ed.ac.uk> cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>In article <1993Jan20.002834.27142@oracle.us.oracle.com> mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes:

>>For example, a 50 year hiring plan is
>>ridiculous for almost any company because you don't know what
>>functions will be automated over the next 40 years.

>A plan doesn't have to be set in concrete. 

Correct.

>In this case you decide
>what things are likely to be automated, what things may be automated,
>the likely consequences, etc., and make a plan which involves a number
>of options, decision points, and review points.

If you had to, you would.


>It wouldn't surprise
>me if there were Japanese companies which had 50 year hiring plans.

Why?  Can you please explain why this would be useful?

>The point is that if you are right you come out ahead of the game, and
>if you are wrong you come out no worse off than the idiots who think
>the game is unplayable.

Incorrect.  First off, if you are right you come out even.  I fail to
see how a fifty year hiring plan leaves you ahead of the game.

Secondly, if you are wrong you come out behind.  Why?  Because people
capable of drawing up a fifty year plan are few and far between.  If
you put them to work on a plan that ends up being trashed you can't
use them for something useful.

In fact, going back to by first point, I bet your fifty year hiring
plan leaves you behind even if it works.  Why?  Because the people
capable of doing a 50 year hiring plan decently are much more valuable
than the people capable of doing a five year hiring plan decently.
Also, don't forget the time value of everything.  Even if planning
takes the same amount of time no matter how far in the future it is
(an unlikely assumption) you are still better off pushing such costs
forward.  Even if planning for 2040 costs as little in 1990 as in 2030
it still ends up costing you 15 times as much assuming an interest
rate of 7% per year.  So where is the added value to compensate for this?

>My business is robotics research, and I sometimes get interviewed by
>interested companies. I always ask them about how far ahead they plan
>and budget, because some of my research is long-term. I am staggered
>by how much further ahead Japanese companies routinely plan and
>budget. 

>The big companies often plan, in informed and carefully
>researched detail, many decades ahead, where US and UK companies will
>refuse to look more than five years ahead. The last Japanese
>businessman I spoke to said his idea of a _medium_ term company-funded
>and -staffed research programme was twenty years.

This probably explains why the Japanese are rarely at the forefront of
new technology.  Can you think of any of today's important technologies
which were taken seriously 20 years before they were commercialized?

>He also funds long
>term research programmes, with big teams, not just a boffin in a hut.
>How long is long term? He just laughed and said "Much longer than
>twenty years!  For my children's children."

Mind telling us a 20 year research program that you think is worth
investing in?  I think you would have a hard time.  Why?  Because,
based on past experience, we don't even have to tools today to play
arround with the things that will be commercialized in 20 years.


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