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The BBN Fund
Building a “Convergent Research for BBNs”
Jan 16
•
Eric Gilliam
42
4
11
A Scrappy Complement to FROs: Building More BBNs
ARPA’s early decades of success have made the ARPA model iconic.
Oct 15, 2024
•
Eric Gilliam
53
7
A Report on Scientific Branch-Creation: How the Rockefeller Foundation helped bootstrap the field of molecular biology
This piece is noticeably longer (twice the length) than the others on this Substack.
Jan 12, 2023
•
Eric Gilliam
34
3
4
How did places like Bell Labs know how to ask the right questions?
Alternative Title: Why all applied research organizations should hire a Bell-style systems engineer
Apr 20, 2023
•
Eric Gilliam
322
11
49
A Progress Studies History of Early MIT — Part 1: Training the engineers who built the country
The MIT Series
Jul 28, 2022
•
Eric Gilliam
31
2
2
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Discussions
BBNs Toward Universal Fabricators
A guest post by Ivan Jayapurna
Feb 19
•
Eric Gilliam
14
2
3
An Applied Crop Genetics BBN
A guest post by Karen Sarkisyan
Jan 30
•
Eric Gilliam
8
1
1
An Interview with Jano Costard, Head of Challenges at SPRIN-D
The Spotify version of today’s episode can be found at this link.
Jul 18, 2025
•
Eric Gilliam
12
1
2
1:36:53
Wanted: New Instruments to Fund BBNs
A guest post by Alex Obadia
Jun 20, 2025
•
Eric Gilliam
and
Alex Obadia
20
6
2
An Oral History Interview with ARIA CEO Ilan Gur
The Spotify version of today’s episode can be found at this link.
Jun 12, 2025
•
Eric Gilliam
19
1
4
1:57:46
An Oral History Interview with ARIA CEO Ilan Gur [Transcript]
The full transcript accompanying today’s interview, for those who just want to read the interview, not watch/listen to it
Jun 12, 2025
•
Eric Gilliam
4
My Appearance on the Foresight Institute Podcast
Where I discuss Bell Labs systems engineers, giving away $100 million like Warren Weaver, and more.
May 30, 2025
•
Eric Gilliam
7
1
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I want to help people start historically great labs. Operational histories on history's best R&D orgs.
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