Ecco cos'ha scritto l'autore preferito di Bill Gates, Vaclav Smil, riguardo le difficoltà dell'innovazione americana:
Innovation is not done by research institutes and national laboratories. It comes from manufacturing—from companies that want to extend their product reach, improve their costs, increase their returns. What’s very important is in-house research. Innovation usually arises from somebody taking a product already in production and making it better: better glass, better aluminum, a better chip. Innovation always starts with a product.
Look at LCD screens. Most of the advances are coming from big industrial conglomerates in Korea like Samsung or LG. The only good thing in the U.S. is Gorilla Glass, because it’s Corning, and Corning spends $700 million a year on research. …
Look at the crown jewel of Boeing now, the 787 Dreamliner. The plane had so many problems — it was like three years late. And why? Because large parts of it were subcontracted around the world. The 787 is not a plane made in the USA; it’s a plane assembled in the USA. They subcontracted composite materials to Italians and batteries to the Japanese, and the batteries started to burn in-flight. The quality control is not there.
Ed ecco invece cosa ha affermato Bill Gates riguardo il professore della Università di Manitoba:
Smil è molto conosciuto, ma non abbastanza. Io sto cercando di leggere tutto quello che scrive perchè ha una conoscenza incredibile di alcuni fenomeni particolari.
