Comment by alganet

What if it's a trick?

You start by creating a myth: "this place breeds innovation". Then, ambitious smart people wanting to innovate are drawn to it.

Once there, there are two ways of seeing it: "it was just a myth, I'll slack off and forget about it" or "the myth is worthwhile, I'll make it real".

One mistake could end it all. For example, letting who doesn't believe outnumber or outwit those who "believe the myth".

So, small pieces: A good founding myth (half real, half exaggerated), people willing to make it more real than myth, pruning off who drags the ship down.

Let's take that "productivity" from this myth perspective. Some people will try to game it to slack off, some people will try to make the myth of measuring it into reality (fully knowing it's doomed from the start).

A sustainable power of belief is quite hard to put into a formula. You don't create it, you find it, feed it, prune it, etc. I suspect many proto Bell Labs analogues exist today. Whenever there's one or two people who believe and work hard, there is a chance of making it work. However, the starting seed is not enough by its own.

If you ask me, the free software movement has plenty of supply of it. So many companies realized this already, but can't sequester the myth into another thing (that makes monry), even though free software already makes tons of (non monetary) value.