this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2024
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Economics

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Before we get too excited, how much of that R&D funding is on which color of button makes you most likely to click "Buy Now"?

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[–] notamechanic321 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

You're not wrong, but R+D is mostly another operating expense which lowers net income. Net income is what's taxed. Companies could spend this money on building another office or salaries for sales staff instead which would both lower net income.

Some jurisdictions may have special tax considerations for narrowly defined R+D work, but it's mostly companies spending money to try and make more money. Sometimes that pans out and other times it doesn't.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

R and D at corporate

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

The heck is Amazon researching? I've run into CS articles / whitepapers / etc from eg. Microsoft-affiliated researchers (especially in programming language stuff), but can't remember ever seeing anything from Amazon. Probably just means I'm not reading papers from the right field / subfield

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Right, it's pretty clear some of it is probably something related to AWS but I wouldn't be surprised if they did research into things like supply chain management.

I went and did some searching and found https://www.amazon.science/, and it looks like my guess of either AWS or supply chain management was pretty good since I can find articles on both on there 😀

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Aws might be anything from network packet management, to ai tools.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Project Kupier comes to mind.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Huh, I'm severely out of the loop on all these new space ventures, I'd never even heard of it (and it's not even all that new, ~5 years 😅 )

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

AI. Data sciences. Marketing. how to build a more realistic looking android body. Was "Zuck the Cuck" an insult?

[–] [email protected] -4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It's a false comparison. Government are not trying to be innovative. They said but trying to invent new form of governing the state.

At best, a restructure of a department is an RnD for a state. Hell, even elections could be considered RnD...

Does Pepsi taste better Tesla? Who knows?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

It's comparing to the R&D budgets of all companies AND government in France to Amazon. Presumably the companies are trying to be innovative.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

My bad. My reading comprehension was off today...😄