Many years ago, a friend of mine told me that he wanted to go into R&D as a career. At the time, I was surprised to learn that you could actually make a career of R&D -- taking ideas and building them out to figure out if they're useful to lots of people. I mean, Bell Labs at it's peak was doing exactly this, and they're practically responsible for inventing the technology that makes the modern world...well, modern. Unfortunately we hear so much about how R&D budgets have been decimated in the quest for earnings, but they've been replaced by a new budget item: acquisitions.

It's not like people have stopped innovating. It just goes by a different name. From DNA startups, web startups, electric car startups, alternative energy startups -- startups are the new R&D. It's a more focused, market-oriented R&D, but ultimately dollars are being spent to build and discover the next big thing. And with every startup win comes a bunch of new rich startup people who want to funnel money into the next round of ventures -- continuing the cycle.

Part of the reason that startups innovate -- and big companies don't -- is the idea of sustaining change versus disruptive change (The Innovators Dilemma). Big companies don't do it well, small companies do -- and the smallest company of all is a startup.

So as a car lover, it's nice to see General Motors (the hippest of all the conglomerates) dropping $100-million into a venture capital fund. R&D is back! GM is too big to fail innovate, so they're pushing money into a small organization that can get behind relatively smaller wins, prove the new idea/market, and then get scaled up with the financial resources that GM can provide.

Just like the web startup world, where small groups try out new ideas, then get big money to take the idea to the next level. Remember the old adage -- "scaling problems get funded".

(And yes, Edan. I agree -- R&D is startups are badass.)