The science and tech community has fervently debated what makes DARPA so special.93 With an annual budget of $4 billion94—about one-tenth of the NIH—DARPA punches well above its weight. One answer is that DARPA empowers domain experts called program managers to pay scientists and technologists to work together on projects of their own design. “There’s no question to me that program managers—especially program managers with vision, creativity, and independence—are the most important part of DARPA,” said Erica R. H. Fuchs, a professor of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon.95 Unlike
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