Author Estrin sees U.S. research as 'eroded,' 'unstable'

Unlike most first-time authors, Judy Estrin was guaranteed an audience from the moment she decided to put pen to paper.

With one of Silicon Valley's more renowned resumes, Estrin helped launch seven companies in a career spanning two and a half decades.

Judy Estrin

So it was that she decided to offer her own policy prescriptions on the myriad economic challenges facing the United States.

The problem with so many books of this genre is that most are boring beyond belief. It's hard to believe these same former executives forged successful careers by spouting the kind of mind-bending platitudes they routinely cram into their memoirs. Then again, that's in line with the happy talk routinely offered up in public as a substitute for serious policy debate.

Happily, Estrin resisted that temptation and instead turned out a hard-hitting cri de coeur that is reaching bookstores at a particularly opportune time. As the country gears up to choose its next president, the upcoming publication of Closing the Innovation Gap: Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in a Global Economy should be required reading by Barack Obama and John McCain.

What Estrin offers is a marvelously frank polemic, distilling the experience and wisdom of a 25-year career to consider the profoundly troubling confluence that she says threatens the future of this country's innovation ecosystem, one Estrin describes as "even more eroded and unstable" than she ever imagined.

"I thought I was going to have trouble (selling the idea) in that people weren't going to believe we had a problem," says Estrin, who began writing the book in 2006. "At the time, people in general were feeling pretty good from an economic prospective."

Two years later, the chickens have come home to roost.

"The severity of our problems has really become more apparent to the everyday person or whether it is the price of oil, whether it is the prime mortgage problem," she says.

Estrin was lucky with her timing. But several of the problems she writes about have been around for years. To wit:

• Our national research community is suffering from neglect. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ranked the United States 22nd in the percentage of GDP that nations spend on nondefense research.

• Estrin laments the focus on short-term financial transactions at the expense of building for the future. A "culture of instant gratification" has set in, she says, where "anything that is not seen as being directly connected to short-term gain is viewed as highly discretionary at best, if not an outright waste."

•  In post-September 11 America, Estrin says the response to complicated, global questions needs to be better aligned with realities on the ground. "When fear becomes the driving force in a society, people stop asking questions, instead of looking to the world around them for insight and collaborative potential."

•  Science has become too vulnerable to nonscientific objections. She notes instances where religious ideology has impacted decisions whether or not to fund or restrict scientific inquiry or school curricula.

The following are excerpts from an extended conversation I recently had with Estrin.

What drove you to write the book?
Estrin: I spent about a year presenting (this idea) in different environments and as I presented to different people it became clear to me that there was some concern about innovation, but not enough. A lot of people think that innovation is a sound bite, but there were a lot of people in the business world who were struggling with what really makes for innovative cultures. More than that, I began to realize that there were broader issues in the country in terms of the culture and the environment that had made my career possible. And the more I interviewed people, the more concerned I became and the more passionate I became about the topic.

You raise several troubling questions about the state of what you describe as the innovation ecosystem. When you finished the book were you more pessimistic than when you began it?
Estrin: When I began the book I was very focused on the problems in Silicon Valley and the problems in business of a short-term perspective on Wall Street. By the time I finished the book, I actually had become more alarmed about the breadth of the problems.

You write that the U.S.' innovation ecosystem is "even more eroded and unstable than you ever imagined." Not exactly an optimistic, "morning in America" message, is it?
Estrin: I'm not an alarmist by personality. I have to be hopeful because we have no choice. We really have to address these issues or else we're just going to keep going down.

When I was interviewing people, some of the people I interviewed would say to me, "You know, give it up. America has just lost it. It is no longer a superpower, it is in decline and there's nothing you can do about it." Then I would talk to other people, who would say, "This is just all about market cycles and the market will take care of itself. So, go write a business book on innovation, but from a country perspective, there's nothing the government could do." It was almost like they wanted to say, just recognize time constraints and the market will take care of itself.

I don't believe the market can take care of itself this time because one of the problems is that the market has become very, very short-term focused...I'm not one of those people that says the government can solve all our problems, but I believe that where we are right now actually is somewhere in between those two perspectives. We need leadership from the top to provide the inspiration and the spark. There are some places where we need some policy changes and some strategically placed funding to be able to get the incentives aligned to solve some of these problems. Then we need business and educational and nonprofit leaders to work with government to figure out what we're going to do to.

Is your answer, then, an electoral change with different people in charge?
Estrin: There's no question we need different people in charge. There's no question we need new leadership for the country.

You note that eight of China's nine top leaders are engineers, while the ninth is a geologist. Do you think China is going to be out-innovating the U.S. in 20 years?
Estrin: If we do nothing, there's no question about it. But I believe that the level of freedom and individuality that we have historically had in our culture provides the framework for that type of (disruptive) innovation more than you'll find in a more structured society. If you look at China, Japan, or at some other nations, they tend to be more hierarchical and more structured and so that leads them to innovate in the areas where you need to apply scale. I think that if we can get back our culture of openness and freedom and a culture of valuing science and paying respect to it, then no one can beat us in that area.

At the Intel Developer Forum, (former CEO) Craig Barrett, complained that the U.S. isn't doing enough to spur R&D compared with the rest of the world. Apropos, you write in your book that science is becoming too vulnerable to nonscientific objection in this country.
Estrin: I'm very, very, very concerned about that. When you look at making changes in our education system, you want to make decisions based on evidence and data. You don't want to make decisions based on who is in office or what geography you're trying to play up to. You make those decisions based on scientific data and scientific facts. You need people who can look at that and then make the decisions based on that input. Unfortunately, in the last decade, the scientific community has been treated like a special interest group, as opposed to being used as a resource.

Is it a question of getting more people with scientific backgrounds into elected office?
Estrin: It isn't so much even that Washington needs to be populated by people who are scientists, but we need people in Washington--whether it is Congress or the president or the people who run the agencies--who have an appreciation for science and understand the role that science plays in solving problems.

Listening to you I'm wondering whether you have any aspirations to go into political life?
Estrin: Why do you ask?

Well, when you have someone making this kind of social and economic critique who comes from the business community, you can't accuse them of being a soft-headed bureaucrat who believes in government handouts.
Estrin: Right.

So, you're someone who has been a serial entrepreneur with an established CV in Silicon Valley. You have the bonafides.
Estrin: I didn't write this to put forth a political opinion, but I did come out of writing it with a stronger opinion about the country and government than I ever had before. You asked whether I aspire to run for anything--the answer is no because I just don't think that's me. I would much rather talk about these issues and evangelize and help whoever is in power do the right things than run for office.

[georgiarat]

Some of the biggest roadblocks to research in this country are political correctness and overstepping. Whether it comes from the right or the left an idea is attacked or starved for funding based on idealogy. Stem cell research was restricted because of religious objections, too much money and time has gone into climate change because it was the cause du jour of the left. Even the NSF has become a highly politicized activity because unless you are part of the peer in group from a political point of view one will not get the backing for the research as well as not being at one of the "approved" institutions. Until we can have a truly open research progress the USA will continue to fall behind.

[dailofan]

Too much money has gone into Climate Change? Not a chance. You'll see spedning on this go up 10000% in the coming decades. Now that the US Military has identified it as one of the greatest threats to security and stability in the world it will be very tough for the non-scientist naysayers to keep suggesting that the universal scientific conclusions are somehow not accurrate.

[ghostofitpast]

Please make note of the dog that did not bark in the night: I just ran a Firefox text search on the string "edu" and got only two hits. One is, for all intents and purposes, thoroughly gratuitous: "Then we need business and educational and nonprofit leaders to work with government to figure out what we're going to do to." The other is not much better, involving changes to the educational system "based on evidence and data," which probably conceals an unhealthy worldview. Those most likely to read this book live in the objective world of engineering and/or balance sheets and tend to overlook the rich evidence from the social world that is not easily reduced to "data." Until we address the pathologies of our educational system in terms of social, as well as "content," problems, we are unlikely to have a population base capable of grappling with such concepts as "creativity" or "research."

The problem with polemic writing is that it leaves us with the false security that someone else is worrying about the problem, thus saving us the trouble of exerting our own efforts. On the basis of the "evidence" in this report, this book strikes me as such polemic of the worst order. However, since our educational system continues to fester, it matters little who actually takes the trouble to read the text in its entirety.

[Manhattan2]

American ingenuity will prevail. A group of engineers and computer scientists have kept that dream alive. Their work addresses many of the issues facing mankind and that work will be revealed shortly. Manhattan2Project This time for all the right reasons. Be a scientist, save the world!

[tacit]

It's depressing, really, to see the nation that was once the world's powerhouse of science and reason descend into anti-intellectualism. America, a country that rose on the power of technology and science, has over the past few decades increasingly slid into superstition and a weird, almost pathological hatred of reason. We're graduating far fewer engineers and scientists every year than other countries; popular culture is rife with suspicion of, and often outright hatred of, science.

I hope we can reverse this tide of anti-intellectualism before we are eclipsed on the world stage.

[Dr_Zinj]

I really need to pick Judy's book up and give it a read. Sounds like she pretty much hit the nail on the head. America apparently is losing it as a world leader in scientific research and implementation of new technologies. Most of our greatest innovations were conceived and implemented prior to the beaurocratization and litigation of the patent process. We turned a system that was intended to provide protection of ideas and inventions for a limited period of time while setting the stage for improving further research into a system that prevents any building on previous ideas.

America cannot compete in the world if we deliberately tie our hands behind our backs. Sure as the sun comes up each morning, other nations in the world are not going to be so protective of others inventions.

[tbuccelli]

The drive to "equalize" the education system for girls has made the system much better for them, but has driven boys away. The "educational system" was changed to benefit girls without care for the impact it would have on boys. Many in charge new that boys and girls learn differently, but changes were made without care for the boys or their future. We are now reaping the rewards of such callous decisions. Boys were the ones more likely to go into engineering, we now have fewer engineers. More women are entering engineering, but what are the total of men and women that are graduating.

[mishmash0101]

Unfortunately, not an original thought in the whole book. I would have expected much more from someone so smart. Anyone can be a critic of the current state of things and ideas for a better tomorrow are a dime a million. Put all of your money where your mouth is and DO something. That would be refreshing.

[i_am_still_wade]

Part of the problem is the backwards thinking we have developed. No longer are scientists or intellects searching for truth. They are searching for a way to validate their opinion. For instance, instead of saying "Is global warming real? Lets prove it.", they say "Global warming is real, how do we prove it?". They start with the answer. And they start with the answer because of money. The point of Michael Crichton's book State of Fear was that studies tend to prove what the group funding them believe. (Of course, that thought was lost because Crichton used global warming as an example of this fact but most people thought it was an attack on global warming; it was not. It was an attack on what science has become.) Then we have the PC crowd trying to make a round peg fit in a square hole. To top it all off, the media sensationalism hurts in a big way.

I used global warming because it best illustrates what is wrong with science. Instead of welcoming debate, the proponents scream louder. Debate is no longer welcomed, you must accept what is said or you are wrong. Scientists are afraid of challenge the Church of accepted belief for fear of losing funding. That is no different than Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition.

In all honesty, the whole system is broken.

[spkrman6]

I do see the problem with the focus today on short term gain over long term innovation. This problem is exacerbated by our faulty monetary policy, where inflation destroys any incentive for companies to invest in the future, as the investment is eroded before the return can be realized. Our current monetary system makes it more practical for companies to borrow the money they need to accumulate capital, rather than investing in creation of their own capital. Until this system changes, innovation will continue to stagnate and business will continue to focus on the quick buck. There is also a tendency of some members of the scientific community to reject new ideas which reveal flaws in outdated ideas that are assumed to be "fact". This is especially obvious in economic science, as well as the more extreme groups of environmental alarmists.

[ssaikia]

KEYS TO INNOVATION

1. Open Mind = we have to be open to new ideas. Our young people are valuable sources of new ideas
2. Immigration = we need to make it easier for immigrants to come to the US
3. Free Markets = let the markets decide winners, not the government

[Vurk]

While I agree with ssaikia's first two points, the books author says that the third point is not valid.
Short-term capitalists always say the third point. Thats the problem; by the time our market has decided a winner, an overseas market has already released version 2.
Government is not always the answer, but sometimes is can be a useful prod to the markets.

Free markets means "free to invent and create and market" NOT free from all regulation and oversight.
Enron existed in a free market, is that what everyone want s everywhere?

[SpiritWater]

We saw the draught of government grants start with the George W Bush administration in the biotech industry. All of us in that industry had to tighten our belts and look elsewhere for funding and take some unfavorable terms. It certainly wasn't just the biotech industry that felt the pinch of the Bush administration NASA had some of its leanest years under the Bush camp.

Government grants for universities and small businesses in high tech fields are the bread and butter of innovation. Where there are funds there are bright minds looking to push the horizon because the barriers to their experiments have been lowered.

The green tech field, which encompasses all industries, is the future growth area of our economy. Alternative energies, building material recycling, and earth inhabitant friendly chemicals are all viable money making product segments.

We innovate our way out of economic crisis and now is a good time for a good deal from the government.


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