The imagineers of war
"The definitive history of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon agency that has quietly shaped war and technology for nearly sixty years. Founded in 1958 in response to the launch of Sputnik, the agency's original mission was to create "the unimagined weapons of the future." Over the decades, DARPA has been responsible for countless inventions and technologies that extend well beyond the military. Sharon Weinberger gives us a riveting account of DARPA's successes and failures, its remarkable innovations, and its wild-eyed schemes. We see how the threat of nuclear Armageddon sparked investment in computer networking, leading to the Internet, as well as to a proposal to power a missile-destroying particle beam by draining the Great Lakes. We learn how DARPA was responsible during the Vietnam War for both Agent Orange and the development of the world's first armed drones, and how after 9/11 the agency sparked a national controversy over surveillance with its data-mining research. And we see how DARPA's success with self-driving cars was followed by disappointing contributions to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
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What Hacker News says
- 1. The Imagineers of War by Sharon Weinberger
2. The Nature of Technology by Brian Arthur
3. (Not a book but documentary) Connections by James Burk
4. Books by James Burk [0]
- Licklider is one the main persons behind the ARPANET. The Imagineers of War by Sharon Weinberger has a lot of context on his time in DARPA. Few things that I found particularly notable:
* Licklider was conscious about not having too much funding compared to other DARPA projects so that in case of a budget cut, there would a more obvious candidates for the slash.
* Initially, universities pushed back on ARPANET because they were afraid that remote access might lead to more candidates for their mainframe time
- The words to content ratio is high here.
Finally, after about 100 meters of semi-infinite scrolling, he says something important.
"Why Does DARPA Work? " covers DARPA program managers extensively, but the key points are worth reiterating both as a refresher and to emphasize that empowered PMs are the core thing one should not mess with. "What about managing programs through a committee?" NO. "What if performers just submitted grants and coordinated among themselves?" NO. "What about a more rigorous approval process to make sure money isn't wasted?" NO. "What if people could be career program managers?" NO. You get the point."
The point being that DARPA program managers are people who've done something good but are not primarily managers. Their role is somewhat like VCs, without the greed. The problems DARPA works on tend to be rather specific. Many reflect specific military goals. Here's the current project list.[1] Examples: Automated air combat. A transportable linear accelerator. "Persistent, wide-area surveillance of all UAS operating below 1,000 feet in a large city." "Gun-hard, high-bandwidth, high-dynamic-range, GPS-free navigation." Note how different this is from a list of start up companies. These are technical goals, not business goals. Most are hard engineering problems, not pure science. They reflect specific military problems.
The author's article doesn't reflect that tight focus.
DARPA has a customer - the US Department of Defense. The purpose of DARPA is to solve hard problems for DoD, sometimes if DoD doesn't know it has them yet, and sometimes because DoD has a big problem and needs it dealt with. A "private ARPA" as proposed by the author has no customer. That defocuses the organization. It's not clear what a "private ARPA" is for. Even after reading all that verbiage.
Then there's the problem, who does the work? DARPA funding generally goes to small parts of companies that do major work for DoD, or who have expertise making some specific thing. Not post-doc researchers. Not startups. DARPA does not create organizations to work for them. They use little pieces of existing organizations.
The paper looks almost entirely at US institutions. This needs more reach. China has been opening lots of research organizations. Some are boondoggles, some produce good results. Take a hard look at that. Look at what Korea is doing. Figure out why Japan's R&D stagnated.
There are two good books about DARPA - "The Pentagon's Brain", and "The Imagineers of War". I've read the first, but not the second. The first gives a good sense of how the organization works.
(It's been a long time, but I've worked on a DARPA program.)
- I can give you the names of a handful of books that might be useful. Some are more technical, some less so. Some are more about personalities, some about the business aspects of things, some more about the actual technology. I don't really have time to try and categorize them all, so here's a big dump of the ones I have and/or am familiar with that seem at least somewhat related.
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering - https://www.amazon.com/Mythical-Man-Month-Software-Engineeri...
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution - https://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Computer-Revolution-Steven-Le...
The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage - https://www.amazon.com/Cuckoos-Egg-Tracking-Computer-Espiona...
Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet - https://www.amazon.com/Where-Wizards-Stay-Up-Late/dp/0684832...
Open: How Compaq Ended IBM's PC Domination and Helped Invent Modern Computing - https://www.amazon.com/Open-Compaq-Domination-Helped-Computi...
Decline and Fall of the American Programmer - https://www.amazon.com/Decline-American-Programmer-Yourdon-1...
Rise and Resurrection of the American Programmer - https://www.amazon.com/dp/013121831X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&key...
Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date - https://www.amazon.com/Robert-X-Cringely/dp/0887308554/ref=s...
Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle - https://www.amazon.com/Softwar-Intimate-Portrait-Ellison-Ora...
Winners, Losers & Microsoft - https://www.amazon.com/Winners-Losers-Microsoft-Competition-...
Microsoft Secrets - https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Secrets-audiobook/dp/B019G2...
The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture - https://www.amazon.com/The-Friendly-Orange-Glow-audiobook/dp...
Troublemakers: Silicon Valley's Coming of Age - https://www.amazon.com/Troublemakers-Silicon-Valleys-Coming-...
Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire - https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Drive-Making-Microsoft-Empire/dp...
Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture - https://www.amazon.com/Masters-Doom-Created-Transformed-Cult...
The Supermen: The Story of Seymour Cray and The Technical Wizards Behind the Supercomputer - https://www.amazon.com/Supermen-Seymour-Technical-Wizards-Su...
Bitwise: A Life in Code - https://www.amazon.com/Bitwise-Life-Code-David-Auerbach/dp/1...
Gates - https://www.amazon.com/Gates-Microsofts-Reinvented-Industry-...
We Are The Nerds - https://www.amazon.com/We-Are-Nerds-audiobook/dp/B07H5Q5JGS/...
A People's History of Computing In The United States - https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-Computing-United-Stat...
Fire In The Valley: The Birth and Death of the Personal Computer - https://www.amazon.com/Fire-in-Valley-audiobook/dp/B071YYZJG...
How The Internet Happened: From Netscape to the iPhone - https://www.amazon.com/How-Internet-Happened-Netscape-iPhone...
Steve Jobs - https://www.amazon.com/Steve-Jobs-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1451648...
The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation - https://www.amazon.com/Idea-Factory-Great-American-Innovatio...
Coders - https://www.amazon.com/Coders-Making-Tribe-Remaking-World/dp...
Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software - https://www.amazon.com/Dreaming-in-Code-Scott-Rosenberg-audi...
The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency - https://www.amazon.com/Pentagons-Brain-Uncensored-Americas-T...
The Imagineers of War: The Untold Story of DARPA, the Pentagon Agency That Changed the World - https://www.amazon.com/Imagineers-War-Untold-Pentagon-Change...
The Technical and Social History of Software Engineering - https://www.amazon.com/Technical-Social-History-Software-Eng...
Also...
"The Mother of All Demos" by Doug Englebart - https://youtu.be/yJDv-zdhzMY
"Jobs vs Gates" - https://www.amazon.com/Jobs-Vs-Gates-Hippie-Nerd/dp/B077KB96...
"Welcome to Macintosh" - https://www.amazon.com/Welcome-Macintosh-Guy-Kawasaki/dp/B00...
"Pirates of Silicon Valley" - https://www.amazon.com/Pirates-Silicon-Valley-Noah-Wyle/dp/B...
"Jobs" - https://www.amazon.com/Jobs-Ashton-Kutcher/dp/B00GME2NCG/ref...
And while not a documentary, or meant to be totally historically accurate, the TV show "Halt and Catch Fire" captures a lot of the feel of the early days of the PC era, through to the advent of the Internet era.
https://www.amazon.com/I-O/dp/B00KCXJCEK/ref=sr_1_1?crid=U6Z...
And there's a ton of Macintosh history stuff captured at:
- I am surprised to see that nothing about DARPA’s William Godel and his impeccable role in the development of M16 has not been mentioned here.
Taken from Wikipedia -
>>In October 1961, William Godel, a senior man at the Advanced Research Projects Agency, sent 10 AR-15s to South Vietnam. The reception was enthusiastic, and in 1962 another 1,000 AR-15s were sent.[60] United States Army Special Forces personnel filed battlefield reports lavishly praising the AR-15 and the stopping-power of the 5.56 mm cartridge, and pressed for its adoption.
For those who are interested more in Mr Godel’s role, please refer to The Imagineers of War by Sharon Weinberger.
- Finished The Imagineers of War by Sharon Weinberger and The Pentagons Brain
Both are on DARPA.
