Much that you say is okay in general although nearly irrelevant to what I have written on this blog or done in my own work. You seem to be hinting that research that is new has to struggle with professors to be converted to a product, has to be too expensive to convert to a product, can't result in a project that can be done by three guys in a garage, and can't result in a cheap product Grandma can use. All of these hints are true for some research but not all.

You mentioned DSP: Okay, there was a Presidential Science Advisors meeting with J. Tukey writing notes with both hands and R. Garwin. Garwin saw Tukey writing what looked like Fourier math and asked if he knew anything Garwin didn't since he (Garwin) was struggling doing numerical Fourier transforms. Sure, Tukey knew something. Back at the office Garwin showed Cooley, and the Cooley, Tukey fast Fourier transform came alive, and that is the core of DSP.

Now all the 'research' required was just one or a few pages of derivations with elementary facts of trigonometry. Still, the possibility of the FFT was widely missed. So, all Tukey had to do was just keep his mouth shut, get with Texas Instruments or some such, work out a deal, build an FFT chip, try to keep secret how it worked, or maybe patent it, and get rich. These days he could run a SaaS site that ran applications software that heavily exploits the FFT. E.g., run software for seismic signal processing based on the FFT. If Tukey was the only guy in the world who knew the math behind the FFT, then he could have a license to print money.

Seismic signal processing? Sure, for the oil industry. Look up "The Abcs of Seismic Exploration and Processing Enders A. Robinson" and other publications of Robinson. One of his books has a nice collection of FFT and related software in an appendix. At one time I was an expert in the FFT, and that expertise got me a new, high end Camaro. Keeping his research on the FFT a secret could have made Tukey a fortune.

Well, Tukey is not the only person who can do such research! And some of us who can do such research, e.g., with just paper and a pencil and then a cheap computer, also with TeX, now can decline to publish and, instead, just build the research results into software run on a server farm.

E.g., once a guy built an FFT box, all hardware. He explained it to me complete with the logic for the different, tricky signal flow graphs between the stages. So each different graph needed different hardware. So, I mentioned to him that there was another version of the FFT that used the same signal flow graph at each stage, and, of course, right away he noticed that he could have saved a lot of hardware!

Of course, as I outlined, we don't just do the research as a shot in the dark. Instead, as I outlined, first do Step 1, that is, pick an important, unsolved problem. In Tukey's case it would have been running a SaaS shop for seismic signal processing. Then in Step 2, try to do some research to get a powerful solution to the important problem. In Tukey's case, that's where he would have done his research for the FFT. You are following me, right?

So, we don't do the research until we have a problem in mind. There's a recipe for rabbit stew that starts, "First catch a rabbit". Well my recipe for applied research is, "First get an application" or, if you will, a problem. THEN try to do the research. If the research fails, then pick another problem. However, if the research is successful, then right away you have at least on valuable application, and that fact puts your research near the top of the pile of what is relevant for making money soon.

That's what I've done for my project and what I recommended as a solution for the project evaluation struggles in PG's essay.

So, in your terminology, in my recommendation, the incentives and goals very much ARE aligned.

There's no law that says that I, or anyone who can do research, can't put my feet up, think of an important problem, review tools that might be useful for finding a solution, think of a solution, as original work, 'research', and proceed. The research need be no more than Stan Ulam's "few scribbles on a piece of paper" that change the world. That's all there was to Tukey's FFT, and that's all there is to my research for my project. But lots of people struggled with Fourier transforms and didn't see what Tukey did. And lots of people are struggling with the important problem of my project with essentially no chance of reinventing the research I did. And my research stands to be much more powerful than anything those other guys will stir up -- for just why, an explanation here would just get people to willingly misunderstand in order to argue and the HN mods would down vote me with glee.

You seem to be missing what I said about DoD research and, instead, are running off in various other directions critical of the DoD. Your criticisms may be correct, but they are basically irrelevant to what I said: My Step 2 asks for some research to find a powerful solution to the important, unsolved practical problem of my Step 1. So, a question is, can there be such research? My answer is, sure: The US DoD has been providing excellent examples for over 70 years now. This answer is rock solidly correct and answers the question. That the DoD wasts money in various other ways is irrelevant to my simple point here.

The core problem PG is seeing in project evaluation is that the projects he is considering are neglecting both my Step 1, select an important, unsolved problem, and Step 2, do some research to get a powerful solution to the problem.

The big advantage of picking an "important, unsolved problem" as in my Step 1 is that, like my example of a one pill cure for any cancer, we are absolutely certain that there will be good 'product/market fit', that is, that customers will line up. So, the first problem with the projects PG is seeing is that the problems being solved are not both unsolved and important enough. So, it's not clear if some such project will be another InstaGram or PInterest or just forgotten. As explained by PG and on this thread, for such projects, some catch on and some don't, and early on it's a shot in the dark to know. That a good, one pill cure for cancer would "catch on" is beyond doubt. Then some of the struggles PG explained in project evaluation would go away. See the importance of picking an "important, unsolved problem"?

The big advantage of doing some research, as in my Step 2, for a powerful solution to the problem of Step 1 is that do get a solution to the unsolved problem, or maybe just a much better solution than anything else, and get a technological barrier to entry. Now we come to the common remark that "Anything you can do 1000 other people can do, are doing, or have already done", etc., NO! If Tukey had just stayed quiet, then it would have been a long time until
others had figured out what the heck he had done. Sure, the main ideas of the FFT had been in the literature, in one form or another, going way back; still what Tukey did was nice, high quality research. All he had to do was just be quiet. Of course, Tukey was a big shot at Bell Labs and Princeton and in government science so was the kind of guy who would rush to publish. But by not publishing, think what he could have done for the Princeton endowment!

So, net, instead of struggling trying to evaluate the projects that PG sees, pick an important, unsolved problem and then do some research to get a powerful solution. For the DoD, it shows that such research is possible.

What is research? Not easy to give a good answer quickly. A good answer, and easy here, is just to get a technical Ph.D. from a good research university. Without a good understanding of what research is, mostly people, hearing 'research', will get all confused with rivers of misunderstandings, fears, jealousies, resentments, etc.

How to apply research to solve a practical problem? Again, a good answer is not easy to give quickly. To get a good understanding, get a job in a lab, maybe a DoD lab, that does such work. Again, bridging from research to a product, in some cases, is easy enough. But unless people really understand such bridging, say, from having seen it and done it, typically, again, they will get all confused and draw lots of wrong conclusions.

Look, it's clear: It's quite clear that quite likely 2+ billion Internet users will like to use my Web site based crucially on my research. But it is also clear that even here on HN and even on Sand Hill Road or Winter Street, any mention of such research is heresy, really offensive, really pisses people off.

The flip side of this situation is that (1) there are very few people, even among college profs, who have the prerequisites I used in my research, (2) only a tiny fraction of those people have any interest in entrepreneurship, (3) even if some qualified person did reinvent my research, they would face the same head in the sand attitudes about research I've seen on Sand Hill Road, (4) so that, net, I stand to have essentially mo competition.

So, I should just quite getting attacked on HN for trying to help PG, YC, HN, and SV, mail a letter I should send today, and return today to writing the last dozen or so of my Web pages as I planned. Off to it.

If anyone wants anymore about research, by all means get a good undergraduate major in pure math and then apply to graduate school in a technical field in a good research university. I've already been there, done that and never wanted to be a teacher and certainly don't want to now.

Today is the last day for me on HN.

Stay ignorant my friends, and arrogant, too!