PL R&D works on frontier fields where the opportunity is large, but progress is constrained. We map the field, name the bottleneck, and intervene where we believe we can unlock the most movement.
The loop is three steps: Diagnose, Intervene, Learn. Diagnose names the bottleneck. Learn reads field velocity, then checks the inflection points against what we did.
Name what is actually rate-limiting the field now — not which bottleneck would be interesting to work on. The intervention follows that diagnosis.
The opportunity, landscape or problem is still illegible.
The science or technology cannot yet do what is required.
The right actors exist, but they are fragmented.
Too few capable people are working on the problem.
The right capital is missing, or available at the wrong stage.
A shared capability is missing and blocking many actors at once.
Something promising exists, but has not been proven in the world.
The capability exists, but there is no clear route to adoption.
Rules, standards, incentives or trust prevent deployment.
No durable organization can carry the work forward.
Binding question, after the blockers: which of these is preventing this field from moving faster now?
These are not categories of activity. They are the levers by which we try to change conditions in a field. The lever should follow the bottleneck.
The opportunity, landscape or bottleneck is not yet clear.
Credible actors change what they understand or do; hidden bottlenecks become visible and begin receiving attention or resources.
The right people and institutions exist, but they are fragmented, disconnected or working at cross-purposes.
Repeat collaboration, new projects, coordinated capital, agreements or standards, and shorter time from introduction to collaboration.
Promising work exists, but lacks the right capital, talent, compute, data or institutional support.
Additional capital enters the field, funding moves faster, follow-on resources appear, and projects graduate toward the capital they need next.
A missing technical capability, piece of infrastructure or institution is blocking progress for many actors at once.
Real users and dependencies, lower cost or time for downstream actors, new research enabled, and infrastructure that can persist without PL R&D.
Something promising exists, but lacks credible evidence outside the lab.
Pilot → adoption, procurement, follow-on deployment, improved cost or performance, and better evidence about what actually works.
The capability exists, but rules, standards, incentives, legitimacy or institutional structures prevent it from spreading.
Standards adopted, procurement enabled, barriers removed, and third parties increasingly able to deploy or replicate what works.
The spanning condition, not a seventh category. It shapes what people notice, believe is possible, and choose to join — across all six levers.
The stories that make a field worth joining: how the opportunity is told, and who can picture themselves in it.
The people who carry a field — discovering it, joining networks, receiving resources, building infrastructure, running pilots, creating institutions.
Pick a focus area. The summary reads that field’s velocity across the instruments that apply to it. The inflection points below are the markers we track.
Work in progress. These readings are still being settled. Some charts will change.