标题: China’s Innovation Model + Breaking Bad’s Business Model [打印本页] 作者: choi 时间: 10-1-2013 12:31 标题: China’s Innovation Model + Breaking Bad’s Business Model 本帖最后由 choi 于 10-1-2013 14:31 编辑
“many Chinese economists and scientists say the central-planning tack has come up short on new ideas, noting that these fields [China has been pursuing] are well-trod technologically by the West. They are calling for China to move beyond a ‘catch-up’ strategy.
"Chinese scientists complain that Beijing focuses too heavily on headline-grabbing efforts, like building supercomputers—it currently makes the world's fastest supercomputer, in a ranking done every six months by Top500, a group of leading computer scientists—rather than fundamental science that could spawn new industries.
"China has become the world's No. 2 spender on R&D behind the US, but the US spends 19% of its R&D budget on basic science—the kind of research that can spawn new fields over time—compared with just 5% for China, according to the U.S. National Science Foundation.
"But for the most part, say a number of economists in and out of China, the problem is too much state control, which snuffs out what's often called 'curiosity-based' innovation. Research grants must be approved by science and technology bureaucrats who judge whether they fit into a pre-approved state project. Corruption, or simply bad judgment, can kill ideas.
My comment:
(a) Obviously the Chinese subtitle is translated from the ONLINE title of the English original: "China's Top-Down Take on Innovation: State-run model is limiting, some Chinese economists say."
(b) The importance of the seemingly hackney quotation above is made apparent when juxtaposed with the next. 作者: choi 时间: 10-1-2013 12:31
(2) Schumpeter | The 'Breaking Bad' School; The best show on television is also a first-rate primer on business. Economist,
Sep 28, 2013. http://www.economist.com/news/bu ... breaking-bad-school
My comment:
(a) Breaking Bad http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Breaking_Bad
(2008-2013; an American AMC drama; The term to "break bad" is American Southwest slang meaning to turn against one's previously lawful lifestyle for one of criminal acts, usually at the cost of someone else's life or well-being)
It was "a production of Sony Pictures Television" Wikipedia
(b) The former high school teacher, Walter White "quickly discovers his inner businessman. 'Do you know what would happen if I suddenly decided to stop going into work?' he asks his wife. 'A business big enough that it could be listed on the NASDAQ goes belly up.' But he then discovers that running a big business is rather different from launching a start-up—and, like so many before him, becomes the victim of the compromises that he has made in his entrepreneurial salad days.
(i) I did not watch the cable. The allusion to Nasdaq might about his methamphitamine manufacturer. The "start-up" might refer to his early days to break into this business.
(ii) salad days http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salad_days
(iii) Cleopatra http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra
(69-30 BC; section 1.2.2 Relationship with Julius Caesar: Cleopatra was 21 years old when they met and Caesar was 52)
(c) "The first lesson from 'Breaking Bad' is that high-growth businesses come from unexpected places. Mr White uses his skills as a chemist to revolutionise the slapdash meth industry (he was a researcher before becoming a teacher). He is not alone. William Thorndike of Harvard Business School (HBS) studied eight bosses whose firms outperformed the S&P 500 index more than 20-fold over their business careers. He found that they were all outsiders who brought fresh perspectives on their industries. Clayton Christensen, also at HBS, argues that great entrepreneurs look at the world through a 'marginal lens.' It so happens that Bill Gates, a university drop-out working in a then marginal bit of the computer industry, started Microsoft in Mr White’s home-town, Albuquerque, before moving to Seattle."
(i) William N Thorndike Jr, The Outsiders: Eight unconventional CEOs and their radically rational blueprint for success. Harvard Business Review Press, 2012.
(A) His list:
* Bill Anders, General Dynamics
* Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway
* Katharine Graham, The Washington Post Company
* John Malone, TCI
* Tom Murphy, Capital Cities Broadcasting
* Henry Singleton, Teledyne
* Dick Smith, General Cinema
* Bill Stiritz, Ralston Purina
(B) The following is gleaned from Wikipedia.
* John C Malone "served as chief executive officer of cable and media giant, Tele-Communications Inc (TCI), for twenty-four years from 1973–1996."
* "Capital Cities' announced $3.5 billion purchase of ABC on March 18, 1985, stunned the media industry, as ABC was some four times bigger than Capital Cities was at the time. Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett helped to finance the deal in exchange for a 25 percent share in the combined company. * * * The Walt Disney Company bought Capital Cities/ABC in February 1996."
* In 1960 Henry Singleton co-founded Teledyne Technologies, Inc (now headquartered in Thousand Oaks, Calif)
* General Cinema Corporation (1935-2002; a chain of movie theaters; After filing for bankruptcy protection in 2000, GCC was acquired by AMC Theatres in 2002)
(ii) Clayton Christensen, James Allworth and Karen Dillon, How Will You Measure Your Life? Harvard Business Review Press, 2012.
(A) "Originally a speech at Harvard Business School, then a famous article in the Harvard Business Review"--now a book.
The link supplies "executive summary" rather than the full text, which must be purchased. The executive summary does not mention "marginal," Netflix, or Blockbuster. See (C) below.
(B) T Greer, Institutions, Instruments, and the Innovator's Dilemma. Mar 1, 2013. http://scholars-stage.blogspot.c ... and-innovators.html
Quoted the book extensively and explained “marginal thinking” and “marginal lens.”
three consecutive paragraphs:
“Blockbuster followed a principle that is taught in every fundamental course in finance and economics: that in evaluating alternative investments…. base decisions on the marginal costs and marginal revenues (the new costs and revenues) that each alternative entails.
"It’s a dangerous way of thinking. Almost always, such analysis shows that the marginal costs are lower, and the marginal profits higher, than the full cost. This doctrine biases companies to leverage what they have put in place to succeed in the past, instead of guiding them to create the capabilities they will need in the future. If we knew the future would be exactly the same as the past, that approach would be fine. But if the future is different---and it almost always is---then it is the wrong thing to do.
"Blockbuster looked at the DVD postal business using a marginal lens: it could only see it from the vantage point of its own existing business. When viewed like this, the market Netflix was going after did not look at all attractive. Worse, if Blockbuster did go after Netflix successfully, this new business was likely to kill Blockbuster’s existing business.
* marginal cost http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_cost
(C) Photography talks about "marginal lens" but it is not a technical term but means a mediocre lens--“marginal” used as in English definition rather than in economics.
* Alex Chow, Urban Landscapes; Digital travel photography. Shutter Publishing Group, 2010, at page 19 http://books.google.com/books?id ... ography&f=false
("That said, photography is one of those amusements where better gear can, in general, buy you better results. Even the best photographerwould have difficulty creating an aesthetically-pleasing picture using an old, noisy poin-and-shoot camera with a marginal lens". As one becomes more adept, she needs better, more specialized equipment that can better express her vision and style")
* Amanda, Help choosing a new lens for my Canon? “3 months ago” http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20130710205828AAcwmnN
(AWBoater: “ * * *There is no reason to get the 18-135mm, as it will be just another marginal lens (in terms of wedding photography). At minimum, you need an 85mm f/1.8 portrait lens, and two or perhaps three speedlights (if you want to do the classic 3-light setup), as well as stands, umbrellas or light boxes, etc”)
awboater: " * * * So unless you are going to commit to using a tripod, you are paying for a focal length, you will not be able to use. And you carry the extra penalty of having a marginal lens - regardless of what zoom setting you use. If you are wanting to stay hand-held, consider 400mm the maximum. Even then, you may end up with a marginal lens if you go with a bridge camera, but perhaps not quite as marginal as the 42x lens on that camera. * * *
dawn.glenn@ns.sympatico.co.ca: "Thank you for the advice. What is a marginal lense? [a question which met no answer]
(d) "Other dealers might peddle 'Mexican shoe-scrapings' the ground that addicts care little about quality. He produces the kind of meth, so pure that it turns blue
(i) "Mexican shoe-scrapings" is "Gram Parsons' term for low-grade smack."
(A) smack (n; perhaps from Yiddish shmek sniff, whiff, pinch (of snuff); First Known Use: circa 1960):
"HEROIN" http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/smack
(B) The recorded origin:
Keith Richards, Life. Back Bay Books, 2010 http://books.google.com/books?id ... Parsons&f=false
("When I was introduced to dope, it was all pure, pure, pure. You didn't have to worry about what's it cut with and go through all that street shit. Sometimes, eventually, you would have to drift to the bottom—by the time the dope had got you by the scruff of the neck. With Gram Parsons I really went low. Mexican shoe scrapings. But basically my introduction to drugs was all crème de la crème")
(ii) Gary Stix, 'Breaking Bad' Gets Meth Wrong ; The series' science consultant explains why pure meth isn't really blue -- and why it doesn't matter. Salon.com, Aug 22, 2013 http://www.salon.com/2013/08/22/ ... eally_blue_partner/
(chemistry professor Donna J Nelson of Univ of Oklahoma, an unpaid consultant to the show: “What Walt is supposedly synthesizing is powder blue. I can tell you the pure crystals I made never looked anything like that. I don’t think that’s realistic. but it’s part of artistic license that we must allow allow creative artists to have. I think it was just meant to be Walt’s trademark. There are times I think people try to make too much of these details as if Breaking Bad were a science education show”)
, which was first published as
Gary Stix, The Straight Dope: A Q&A with the Prof behind the Good Science in Breaking Bad. Scientific American, Aug 21, 2013 (blog).