This conversation is enlightening to me. See I just always assumed business people understood how engineering works, but were being obtuse to keep us on track or were just looking at the financial spreadsheets. But no it seems some people genuinely don’t understand that sometimes you spend a lot of time on things whether or not it goes anywhere because if you don’t you don’t develop any products or solutions.
If I owned a multimillion dollar company, probably yeah. There’s a limit but for a groundbreaking company the RCA labs are more a warning of “but they actually have to complete projects at some point and have direction” than a “everything needs to be rigidly directed”.
“Hey I have an idea for something I’d like to exist” is quite possibly one of the best things a business owner can hear out of an R&D engineer’s mouth. You provide oversight in accordance with the risk factors established by your financials, business plan, and how good of an idea it is. But if a bunch of them like it as a product that’s a good sign.
I never would’ve expected a handheld console that could comfortably play Baldurs Gate 3 on an airplane. I got it for indie games, but it’s expanded beyond that for me
Oh hey, that’s why I hate capitalism as an engineer. The endless pursuit of profit first rather than making good things that people want is disheartening as someone who just wants to make things that make life better
In 2015, single payer healthcare
Today, infant and maternal mortality
Phish are weirdly involved in Indiana and weirdly uninvolved in Vermont