Is there a problem in the U.S. of underfunding areas of research?
I’m less familiar about that area. I’m mostly dealing with places like DARPA [the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency]. My concern is that we may be reducing what I call playfulness. In research, a large part of it is based on results. We’re too result-oriented. The hallmark of the U.S., and I came from Japan and was very impressed with the difference I found, was what I call this playfulness — people willing to pay money for those things which appeared to be somewhat ridiculous ideas. I think those are needed. When you always ask about the result year after year, then this playfulness is reduced. There must be a very strict, precise evaluation of whether we’re getting results in business, but I think we should not count on every six months getting visible, tangible results. One may argue that bearing the load and costs of innovation should be done by everybody. That may be true, but I think that argument is simply abandoning the desire to always be No. 1. Q: What other areas ar
