8 Comments
Aug 1Liked by Rohit Krishnan

Howdy, so I’m on the trades side of work but i think this still applies to everyone.

Ownership of ideas (who benefits financially from innovation) is a huge difference between cities and companies.

While I am in a city the ownership of my ideas is mine by default.

While I am “inside” a company the company has ownership of my idea by default. I have to prove my idea was created “outside” the company to have ownership of it.

The reason I want ownership of my ideas is because if I bring a truly innovative idea to the company I will not be paid for it.

If I have ownership of the idea then I have ownership of how to generate value from the idea.

So cities promote innovation because innovation most likely means value and value can (at some point) be taxed.

Companies want innovation but when it happens they retain 100% of the value. And provide a “token of appreciation” to the employee.

Some clarification on my assumptions

1. I am thinking of innovative ideas as things above and beyond the scope of your normal work. Encompassed in this is the notion that the innovation is significant. As well as minor ideas or innovations are a part of simply caring about what you do.

2. You have signed an agreement upon getting hired. It’s somewhere between the confidentiality and the none compete. It might also be next to the agreement to arbitration and waiving of the right to take the company to court.

3. my perspective is more on physical goods than intangibles.

I know it’s not posed as a question but i would really like to hear others perspective on this take.

Expand full comment

It seems like purpose, direction, agency, intentionality are the biggest differences between cities and corporations (other than the obvious fact that one is an abstract *geography* and the other a collection of people/ideas). The incentives for an organization to continue require some element of intentionality that feels less required in cities. A city just has to *exist* and host activity whereas a company must direct it?

I suppose an org could exist purely to foster *any* behavior that generated economic activity? If a company literally couldn't be erased from the map (as is the case with most cities), might we see "dead" companies reborn at some point in the future with new missions? Revitalizing old brands and ideas thought to be dead? With the old company's products forming the catacombs of the new?...

Maybe there's a use case for blockchain smart contract permanence here... 😆

Expand full comment
Sep 20, 2021Liked by Rohit Krishnan

I love this article even though I don’t agree with a major premise (because cities are locations- pieces of land that cannot die). But I agree (and have thought for years) that we need to have Bell Labs like companies. Google has an amazing citation of talent at X (formerly called Google X). They just need to do 2 things to supercharge it: (1) let anyone raise ideas and be allowed to bring their ideas into reality (right now that privilege belongs only to Google/Alphabet employees), and (2) allow research to be done even if it won’t be profitable.

The question I have for you is this: if companies became more like cities, what value would companies bring that universities don’t already bring?

Expand full comment
author

Thanks! I think its partly a mindset, of being a place that encourages exploration vs one that focuses on optimising/maximising tangible output. Its the opposite of most management theories, where you dont focus on competitive advantage, or unique skillsets, but purely focus on being a talent attractor.

Re universities, they are pretty fantastic if looked at from company lens. Longevity, highly profitable. Their key issue is transience - the talent passes through for short periods of time, rather than remaining a destination - that's the big diff.

Expand full comment

yea this is a good point. Amazon does a good job with this... investing millions into a smart fridge that may or may not flop miserably.

I think this think-and-work tank is great as long as incentives are aligned. Sounds almost like that one project in English class where you form your own groups and make whatever shit you want.. but with engineers and coders actually getting paid for results.

Expand full comment
author

Amazon, at least the bezos era, are probably the closest we've seen in their consistency of large bets and creating a platform for innovation.

Expand full comment

True. Have you heard of CityDAO? They're buying land in Wyoming as a DAO and building a city. https://www.citydao.io/

Expand full comment
author

Oh interesting! Looks quite intriguing for sure ...

Expand full comment