4/18/18

how the process of technological innovation has changed

time period	dominant approach to innovation	advantages	disadvantages
1870-1920	independent inventors	free to go in any direction	selling patents means losing control, hard to start a new business
1920-1980	corporate research laboratories like PARC	successful company can invest money in developing new products separate from business pressures, focused on research	transition from research to committing to commercialize a product doesn't go well
1980 to present	startups	you can go in any direction you want and can talk people into investing in, you don't have a lot to lose so can take risks	not as much money to work with, hard to recover from errors because you don't have resources and a job to fall back on, hard to make the transition to good business practices

back to Genentech--Niels Reimers and Bob Swanson


An Initial Public Offering (IPO) is when a company goes from being owned by the founders and venture capitalists who have invested to selling stock on a stock exchange to anyone who wants to buy it (going public)
The new technology companies had pioneered going public before they had significant profits
but no biotechnology company had gone public yet
Lots of people wanted to buy Genentech stock and the price rose--IPO Oct. 1980

In Dec. 1980, after going public, Stanford got its fundamental patent on the recombinant DNA process developed by Cohen and Boyer
under the terms developed for patents that grew out of NSF research funding, research use was free but companies had to pay
Riemers had to figure out on what terms to license, he took some risks but his strategy worked

Back to Atari and Al Acorn:
Atari isn't fitting well into Warner and the game business isn't making money
the VCS game console with games on cartridges was a success
but the attempt to make Atari a more conventional business meant key leaders left
Alcorn tried to keep innovating--focused on a holographic game system

but the new head wasn't willing to take risks
and the technology was nowhere near the image below


Bob Taylor and Xerox
the Alto was still being tested but not commercialized
Xerox instead developed a more complex computer, an "executive workstation" called Star
Xerox bought some Apple stock and gave a basic demonstration of the Alto
Taylor was happy his ideas were spreading even if Xerox failed to turn them into products
they weren't following the rise of the new business model