Indeed. The fact of the matter is that today’s environment for researchers is completely different from what it was like in 1986 when this talk was given, though I mention it not to take anything away from this talk. The days of places like Xerox PARC and Bell Labs where researchers had considerable freedom and autonomy are over and have been for quite some time now. Many industry labs promote business-driven research instead of purely curiosity-driven work and expect their researchers to produce a regular flow of research results that can be productized, lest they be shown the door. Academia these days isn’t exactly a bastion of freedom, either, with its “publish-or-perish” pressures needed to secure tenure and remain in good standing, as well as the need to raise grant money, both of which require pleasing external reviewers. Thus, successful researchers under this environment must find a way to manage the inevitable uncertainties of research while also producing enough output to make their evaluators happy. I find these “productivity” metrics stifling, but if I want to continue as a researcher, it’s either play the game successfully or find another way to make a living.

I’ve been thinking long and hard about this for years. Perhaps researchers who value freedom of inquiry and freedom from “publish-or-perish” pressures could work independently, perhaps being funded by fellowships (like the MacArthur Grant), from part-time work, or from a side business.