Moderator:

John Wilkes, HP Laboratories

Panelists:

Eric Brewer, University of California - Berkeley
David Culler, University of California - Berkeley
Jeff Mogul, Compaq Western Research Laboratory
Mendel Rosenblum, Stanford University
Andy Tanenbaum, Vrije Universiteit
Marvin Theimer, Microsoft Research
Bill Weihl, Akamai

What fosters innovation: research grants or stock options?

If you look at the job market for systems people today there's far more good positions than people to fill them. We want the panelists, who are being chosen from each academia, research labs, and startups, to speak as advocates for their type of job choice, trying to convince the audience and other panelists that their choice is the best place to be. The panelists will address this topic both considering the choices available to people who are relatively established in their careers, and to people just getting started, such as graduate students who will be deciding what kind of place to work (and indeed, whether to finish school at all). The discussion to cover not just financial incentives, which are fairly tangible, but also less tangible incentives such as the multiplication factor one can get when working with good students, the ability to pursue truly innovative work, visibility in the academic community, etc.