Scientists and Engineers on Boards Will Keep Focus on the Long Term
I can’t help but wonder whether companies would have a longer-term focus if they had more scientists and engineers in their leadership ranks or on their boards of directors.
Look at Amazon, whose CEO, Jeff Bezos, has a degree in computer science and electrical engineering from Princeton. Maybe the Kindle e-reader isn’t a big stretch for a company that sells books, but Amazon’s push into “cloud,” or utility, computing certainly is. I believe that cloud computing, which promises to make it possible for companies to outsource their data centers, is going to be a transformative force in the IT industry. It is a fairly visionary for a bookselling company to be a leader of this new movement. Yet it isn’t going to improve Amazon’s bottom line in the next quarter, and you don’t see companies making decisions like that too often.
Google, whose leaders all have graduate degrees in computer science, also acts this way. Google routinely creates provocative new technologies before a business case is made on profitability.
Follow the HBR Debate
- Gary P. Pisano: The U.S. is Outsourcing Away Its Competitive Edge
- David B. Yoffie: Why the U.S. Tech Sector Doesn’t Need Domestic Manufacturing
- Robert H. Hayes: Global Outsourcing Is High Tech’s Subprime Mortgage Fiasco
- Andy Rappaport: Outsourcing Isn’t a Problem for Silicon Valley But Is for Detroit
- Willy C. Shih: The U.S. Can’t Manufacture the Kindle and That’s a Problem
- Laura D’Andrea Tyson: Think U.S. High Tech Isn’t Healthy? Look at the Data
Is Short-term Thinking Eroding U.S. High Tech?
- Ed Catmull: Pleasing Wall Street is a Poor Excuse for Bad Decisions
- David. A. Patterson: Scientists and Engineers on Boards Will Keep Focus on the Long Term
- Andy Rappaport: The Culprit Is Capitalism, Not Wall Street
Is Washington the Solution or the Problem?
- Stephen R. Hardis: Beware of Gov’t Solutions for America’s High Tech Industry
- David A. Patterson: Restoring DARPA Is the Key to Preserving the U.S. Lead in IT
- Deborah L. Wince-Smith: Washington Must Help U.S. Regain the Lead in Manufacturing
- Robert H. Hayes: Gov’t Should Enlist Foreign Companies’ to Rebuild America’s Industrial Infrastructure
Scientists and engineers naturally have a long-term perspective because what motivates us is game-changing technology and being associated with something that’s going to change the world in a positive way. I’m sure the creators of Gmail and the Kindle are gratified more by the popularity and critical acclaim of these offerings than they are by the impact on their companies’ bottom lines. Next quarter’s profit is not the main thing that drives most of us.
This perspective — of creating innovations versus creating wealth — motivates the Silicon Valley tradition of sharing the wealth of a new company with all the employees rather than only making the CEO rich and rewarding everyone else with a salary.
But just putting scientists and engineers on boards isn’t enough. Management and the rest of the board would actually have to listen to them. Frankly, one concern about taking such a position is that you’d just be window dressing. To get people like me to accept, we’d have to be persuaded that we could really have an impact on decisions.
A lot of academics feel the same way about the technical advisory councils that many companies have. I served on Sun’s and am currently on Microsoft Research’s. In both cases, I regularly asked for and received proof that my involvement made a difference.
I knew someone on the Berkeley faculty who was on the technical advisory board of a Big Three automaker for a while. He felt the company had no interest in listening to the board, and that a lot of people on the board only stayed because it was financially rewarding. What a shame. Would there still be an independent Big Three if more leaders were thinking longer term — or at least listening to people who do — versus maximizing this year’s profits by building bigger SUVs?
David A. Patterson
Pardee Professor of Computer Science
University of California, Berkeley
Similar Posts:
- Scientists and Engineers on Boards Will Keep Focus on the Long Term
- Why the U.S. Tech Sector Doesn’t Need Domestic Manufacturing
- Pleasing Wall Street is a Poor Excuse for Bad Decisions
- The U.S. Is Outsourcing Away Its Competitive Edge
- Revamping DARPA Is Vital to Preserving the U.S. Lead in IT
- The U.S. Is Outsourcing Away Its Competitive Edge
- Think U.S. High Tech Isn’t Healthy? Look at the Data
- Think U.S. High Tech Isn’t Healthy? Look at the Data
- Beware of Government Solutions for America’s High Tech Sector
- Washington Must Help the U.S. Regain the Lead in Manufacturing
