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The Myth of the Lone Inventor
Codex The Sloth writes "Malcolm Gladwell (who amongst other things, wrote "The Tipping Point") has written an article for the New Yorker claiming that the role of the lone inventor is over. The example of Philo T. Fransworth (the "inventor" of Television) who failed because (amongst other reasons) he didn't have the big resources of a company to allow him to focus on his innovations. The thesis is that it is rare to have a single innovation that makes a product workable and that getting all of the inovations together requires a (large) corporation. No doubt others feel different."
1. DSP research and development. I've worked as the student programmer for a 2 person DSP programming company that was actually successful. The owner, an experienced electrical engineer, was an astounding businessman, programmer, and scientist, who invented and ported sound technology to DSPs, and worked with larger companies on a freelance basis to put those DSP's into larger inventions. All while working at home after years in larger businesses. There's plenty of work out there to make the gadgets of future decades possible - but you have to do a lot of inventing and marketing to make it feasible, and be absolutely sure about each step. If you can't honestly explain exactly what you are doing, in a provable manner, to potential customers, everyone will get very frustrated. Be prepared for lots of legal work too. And be prepared for some insane assembly languages for dozens of different parts - for each new part, the language, compiler, and basic philisophy of the unit seems to change. If anyone can develop consistant tools for many parts between companies, and convince people to start using them, they could make lots of money.
2. Biotech and DNA technology development. Much like #1, but much more massive ammounts of legal work involved. The main thing is that, as much as possible, don't get involved in the touchy intellectual property-oriented areas. Instead, develop the tools which will allow others to study, graph, track, etc, various pieces of Biotech information. The easier and more consistant you can make the process of collecting information and organizing the information for medical researchers, the more they can get done, and hopefully, the more they will use your tools. You'll need to consider the equipment used in various experiments, the nature of the appropriation systems put together for research organizations, and how best to market your product. You can make deals with equipment providers (as long as you're not outright purchased this way), and get job satisfaction out of helping people develop ways to save lives.
Well... those are the two big ones I can think up off the top of my head. Anyone else with some other relatively open branches of computer science or electrical engineering? Any other great unfilled but potentially profitable needs that haven't really been getting companies attention?
:^)
Ryan Fenton
Big corporations don't invent anything,
True enough. Inventions occur through individuals solving problems.
and the worst place in the world for an inventive, brilliant, highly intelligent and competent person (like an inventor) is a stultifying, closed-minded, skeptical, gray, dull bureaucracy (like a big corporation).... What about Linux, for example? Come on. This can't be serious.
Yes, what about Linux? Linux is a good example of why your argument is wrong. Linux is not an invention - in fact it is a copy of an invention that occurred in a very large company.
You are making a grave error if you think all large corporations are gray, dull bureaucracies. Many large corporations in fact supply wonderful environments that spawn incredible creativity and technological progress by their employees. AT&T, for example - Bell Labs (transistor, laser, Information Science, UNIX etc. is a classic example of a corporate environment that was successful in spawning innovation). Other companies have gone through periods where they have succesfully fostered great creativity - DuPont and it's development of synthtic fibers, Texas Instruments and IC's, and so on.
The fact is that good corporations realize that invention can be a great contributor to their growth, and some of them actually grow through that route.
Oh, and individuals often have families to raise, so that a steady wage while they are doing their inventing can look pretty good.
But then there is another story not many people remember about someone doing work on creating a pump mechanism that you place in a river. Using the kinetic force of the movement of the water to power a pump to take some of the water from the river and push it thorugh a hose up a hill. This was a device that was just submerged in the water without the need to dam the river.
I'm not surprised that not many people remember it. What you have described is a hydralic ram, which was invented by the Montgolfier brothers (of ballon fame) in 1793. See here for the details.