Experimentally organized innovation systems: lessons from DARPA, Apple, Amazon, Google, and Operation Warp Speed

Abstract This article examines the experimental organization in some of the world’s most successful innovation systems: DARPA (The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), Apple, Amazon, and Operation Warp Speed (OWS). All these ventures are essentially experimentally organized innovation systems. The most important common feature is their infrastructure for innovation that enables them to experiment and pursue multiple approaches simultaneously, bear the cost of many failures, absorb new technology, rapidly commercialize innovations through marketing and new business formation, and scale up economic activity.