Eric Gilliam

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A New Chapter At FreakTakes

Jan 10, 2025 | freaktakes.com | Eric Gilliam

I’ve always viewed FreakTakes as a small applied research shop. Discontented geniuses set out to run new science orgs or ambitious scientific philanthropies; I produce pieces that help some of them make decisions that determine parts of how to structure their orgs. I can’t do what they do — I wish I could. They do not have the time to look into the minutiae of the R&D operations from history that inspire their work.
Edwin Cohn and the Harvard Blood Factory

Jan 6, 2025 | asimov.press | Eric Gilliam

Today we launch Issue 05 of Asimov Press. Read our full Editors’ Note and preview upcoming articles on our website. Thanks for reading!Edwin Cohn, a temperamental and entrepreneurial protein chemist working at Harvard University in the early 1900s, is perhaps one of the most underrated translational scientists of all time.
A Scrappy Complement to FROs: Building More BBNs

Oct 15, 2024 | freaktakes.com | Eric Gilliam

ARPA's early decades of success have made the ARPA model iconic. Big wins from ARPA’s early history include autonomous vehicles, the internet, and stealth aircraft technology. Inspired by these successes, scientific grant funders are increasingly emulating the ARPA PM approach to R&D funding. While I wholly support the proliferation of the ARPA model, it's important to not overlook a key lesson of ARPA history: many exceptional ARPA projects resulted from exceptional contractors.
Everything Old is New Again: Old research models for new-era semiconductor research

May 28, 2024 | freaktakes.com | Eric Gilliam

Bottom Line Up Front: Recently, large pots of federal funds have been set aside for chip research. A significant portion of these funds should find their way to research teams that operate like the best research groups from the prior, vertically-integrated era. Two ideal teams to learn from are BBN — the prime ARPAnet contractor — and CMU’s early autonomous vehicle teams, who laid much of the groundwork for the autonomous vehicle revolution.
Managing Lockheed’s Skunk Works

Mar 7, 2024 | freaktakes.com | Eric Gilliam

This piece covers how Kelly Johnson managed Lockheed’s famous Skunk Works. In its early decades, Skunk Works continuously produced novel aircraft that pushed the aviation industry forward. Its three most iconic aircraft were the U-2 “spy plane,” the Sr-71 Blackbird — still considered a cutting-edge aircraft 60 years after it was built — and the partially DARPA-funded F-117 Nighthawk — the first stealth bomber.
Lessons from history’s greatest R&D labs

Jan 29, 2024 | answer.ai | Eric Gilliam

Note from Jeremy: There are few things more important to our civilization than understanding how to better do R&D. Thankfully, Eric Gilliam has dedicated himself to studying this question. As a result, he’s become the foremost scholar and historian of 19th and 20th century R&D labs.
An Interview with Chuck Thorpe on CMU: Operating an autonomous vehicle research powerhouse

Jan 9, 2024 | freaktakes.com | Eric Gilliam

The centerpiece of today’s post is an extensive interview with Chuck Thorpe. Thorpe, now President of Clarkson University, spent over two decades at Carnegie Mellon University. These years were largely spent as a student, project manager, and PI working on Carnegie Mellon’s autonomous vehicle vision research.
“The Third University of Cambridge”: BBN and the Development of the ARPAnet

Jan 6, 2024 | freaktakes.com | Eric Gilliam

We’ve all heard that “DARPA invented the Internet.” But few have heard of BBN, the contractor that did the most work to bring the ARPAnet into existence. Today’s piece dives into the history of BBN and the firm’s unique structure. A firm like BBN winning the main portion of the ARPAnet project was a pivotal reason the ARPAnet project went so smoothly.
The Autonomous Land Vehicle, Pilot's Associate, and Battle Management

Nov 7, 2023 | freaktakes.com | Eric Gilliam

This piece is a part of a FreakTakes series. The goal is to put together a series of administrative histories on specific DARPA projects just as I have done for many industrial R&D labs and other research orgs on FreakTakes. The goal — once I have covered ~20-30 projects — is to put together a larger ‘ARPA Playbook’ which helps individuals such as PMs in ARPA-like orgs navigate the growing catalog of pieces in a way that helps them find what they need to make the best decisions possible.
MOSIS

Nov 5, 2023 | freaktakes.com | Eric Gilliam

This piece is a part of a FreakTakes series. The goal is to put together a series of administrative histories on specific DARPA projects just as I have done for many industrial R&D labs and other research orgs on FreakTakes. The goal — once I have covered ~20-30 projects — is to put together a larger ‘ARPA Playbook’ which helps individuals such as PMs in ARPA-like orgs navigate the growing catalog of pieces in a way that helps them find what they need to make the best decisions possible.