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DARPA Director Leaves Pentagon For Google

Posted by Soulskill on from the needs-better-funding dept.

New submitter srussia writes with this quote from Wired: "DARPA director Regina Dugan will soon be stepping down from her position atop the Pentagon's premiere research shop to take a job with Google. Dugan, whose controversial tenure at the agency lasted just under three years, was 'offered and accepted at senior executive position' with the internet giant, according to DARPA spokesman Eric Mazzacone. She felt she could not say no to such an 'innovative company,' he adds. ... 'There is a time and a place for daydreaming. But it is not at DARPA,' she told a congressional panel in March 2011. 'DARPA is not the place of dreamlike musings or fantasies, not a place for self-indulging in wishes and hopes. DARPA is a place of doing.' For an agency that spent millions of dollars on shape-shifting robots, Mach 20 missiles, and mind-controlled limbs, it was something of a revolutionary statement. The shift was only one of the reasons why Dugan was a highly polarizing figure within her agency, and in the larger defense research community."

6 of 70 comments (clear)

  1. In more recent news... by retech · · Score: 4, Funny

    Guglielmo Marconi, Italian Scientist, invents a wireless telegraph that is able to send voice signals through the air via "radio" waves.

  2. What's revolutionary? by stms · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You don't dream the future you build it. Yeah sure you had to have an idea but ideas are the easy part the hard part is implementation.

    1. Re:What's revolutionary? by Trepidity · · Score: 4, Informative

      There are various places you can live on the axes of basic versus applied research, though. DARPA traditionally spent a larger proportion of its budget on basic research than it does today; nowadays the vast majority of DARPA projects intend practical outcomes in the 3-5-year timeframe, often pairing universities doing near-term applied research with companies like Lockheed who're simultaneously implementing it, and expected to exercise considerable pressure on the university partners to focus their research on the near-term "deliverable". Traditionally, that was part of the DARPA budget, while blue-skies research, often in the form of block grants to e.g. a physics or CS research group, was another part of it. The relative percentages have shifted a lot towards the former.

      Some of the justification is that the NSF is supposed to fund basic research, while DARPA is supposed to fund things of near-term practical use to the military. That makes some sense conceptually, but a shift in DARPA priorities without a reallocation in funds between the NSF and DARPA means that in effect science/engineering research funding is being cut in favor of something that leans closer to military R&D.

      --
      10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
  3. Re:Can someone explain what "the shift" means? by tomhath · · Score: 4, Interesting

    those exotic programs which are mentioned in the article ought to take a lot longer than 3 years to manifest

    DARPA = Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

    Yes, DARPA's place is exploring wild ideas, pushing the envelope. But the current administration doesn't want to fund basic research if it's related to the military so they appointed her to merge her budget with routine acquisitions; that way it looks like research is still in the budget when it was actually cut.

    It's just a coincidence that her leaving comes at a time when there's an investigation into some of those acquisitions that were no bid contracts to the company she founded and is still part owner of.

  4. Re:Embrace Evil by Smallpond · · Score: 4, Funny

    It is hard to imagine just how much this embraces the opposite of "Don't be evil". Bringing in someone from DARPA is pretty much a conduit to everything that is wrong and broken about American political life right now.

    Suuuuuuuuuuure it is. This is just the start of Google Defense. Its their plan to come up with a better, ad-supported military.

  5. Obama's response by cashman73 · · Score: 4, Funny
    Prior to her departure, Ms. Dugan set up a meeting with President Obama to discuss her plans. At some point in the conversation Obama said: “Just tell me it’s not Google.” She told him it was Google.

    At that point, President Obama picked up a chair and threw it across the Oval Office, hitting a table. Obama then said: “F**king Eric Schmidt is a f**king pussy. I’m going to f**king bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I’m going to f**king kill Google.”