True agency is an unruly psychological trait. It’s the willingness to act without explicit validation, instruction, or even permission. It’s the meme “you can just do things,” knowing that “you can poke life, and something will pop out the other side.” It’s a venture capitalist with no academic background founding the most important AI lab in... See more

Another alternative to the principal investigator model is exemplified by DARPA. The DARPA model focuses on a program manager with a vision for an ambitious technological goal. The PM contracts out to labs to perform the work, but they control the vision and the budget. This model lends itself well to ambitious technological prototypes, and was the... See more

Take Home Messages

1. A critical niche in the innovation ecosystem once occupied by industrial labs is unfilled.


2. The current innovation ecosystem — academia, startups, and modern corporate R&D — do not cut it.


3. A private organization that riffs on DARPA's model could fill this niche.


4. Private ARPA (PARPA) will de-risk a series of hypotheses and go

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