Low Hanging Fruits and Inflated Drones

The German innovation system has two favorite pastimes: It picks fruits hanging so low you don't even have to bend over. And it inflates drones that will never fly.

In between — where the real work would be — yawns a void.

I. The Low Hanging Fruits

"Low hanging fruits" is the favorite term of management consultants. It sounds like efficiency, smart resource allocation, quick wins. In reality, it's a declaration of bankruptcy.

Those who only pick the low hanging fruits end up with a tree that's bare at the bottom and rotting at the top.

In the German innovation system, "low hanging fruits" means:

Digitalization — but not as a fundamental redesign of processes, rather as the conversion of paper forms into PDF forms. The fax machine gets an email address. Innovation!

Optimization — but not as a leap to a new technology, rather as a 3% efficiency gain in the existing system. The combustion engine becomes slightly more economical. Disruption can wait.

Funding — but not for the untested, rather for what would happen anyway. Large corporations receive money for projects they would have carried out without funding. The risk stays with the taxpayer, the success with the corporation.

The system rewards what costs no effort. And calls it progress.

II. The Inflated Drones

At the other end of the spectrum stand the major projects. The visions. The moonshots. Here, nothing is done by halves. Billions flow into ventures that are supposed to change the world.

Only: They don't.

What these projects share is a paradox: They are simultaneously too ambitious and too trivial. Too ambitious in their promise — flying taxis! Solar power from the Sahara! Rockets from Bavaria! Too trivial in their inventive height — because at their core, they only combine what already exists. Bigger, more expensive, more German.

A real invention solves a problem in a new way. These projects don't solve a problem — they scale existing approaches and hope that size replaces the missing innovation.

It doesn't.

III. The Hall of Fame of Failure

IV. The Pattern

What connects these projects? It's not stupidity. It's not bad luck. It's a system.

First: The vision replaces the invention. All these projects had impressive visions and renderings. What they didn't have: a fundamental technical breakthrough that distinguished them from the competition. They wanted to make the known bigger — not make the impossible possible.

Second: The money comes before the proof. Investors and funders gave billions before the basic technical questions were solved. The hope was that money would solve the problems. But money doesn't replace physics.

Third: Scaling becomes an end in itself. "We need to grow fast to stay relevant." So factories are built before the product works. Teams are inflated before it's clear what they should do. Growth devours substance.

Fourth: Exit is impossible. Once enough money has flowed, the project becomes "too big to fail." Every further financing round is justified by not wanting to lose the previous one. The inflated drone gets bigger and bigger — until it bursts.

V. The Empty Middle

Between the low hanging fruits and the inflated drones lies an area that the German innovation system systematically ignores: the middle height.

Here hang inventions that:

— technically work (unlike the inflated drones)

— have real inventive height (unlike the low hanging fruits)

— but need development work to become market-ready

There's no money for these inventions. They're too unspectacular for the moonshot funders. They're too risky for the low-hanging-fruit pickers. They don't fit any category.

So they hang there. And rot.

VI. The Function of Theater

Why does the system work this way? Because it's convenient for everyone involved — except the real inventors.

For politicians: Inflated drones deliver press conferences, groundbreaking ceremonies, job promises. Whether the project fails later is no longer the current legislature's problem.

For investors: Hype projects are easier to resell than solid technology. The profit lies in the exit, not the product.

For corporations: Low hanging fruits are plannable. You can collect funding without taking real risk. The consultants are satisfied, the quarterly numbers add up.

For the funding bureaucracy: Large projects are easier to manage than many small ones. One Lilium with 1,000 employees is one contact person. 100 inventors with one invention each is chaos.

The system optimizes itself — at the expense of innovation.

VII. What Real Innovation Would Cost

Real innovation is uncomfortable. It doesn't fit in PowerPoint presentations. It doesn't deliver guaranteed results. It smells of risk, of failure, of the unknown.

It would mean:

— Spending money on projects that might fail. Not as an accident, but as a principle. Those who only fund what's certain to work don't fund innovation.

— Technical competence in funding. Someone must be able to distinguish real inventive height from inflated promises. That requires expertise, not just forms.

— Patience. Real development takes time. Not investor cycle time, not legislative period time. Technological time.

— The willingness to make unpopular decisions. Not giving money to a Lilium, even though it makes good PR. Giving money to an unknown inventor, even though they have no lobby.

None of this will happen. The system is too comfortable as it is.

VIII. The Price

While Germany celebrates its inflated drones and picks its low hanging fruits, real innovation happens elsewhere.

SpaceX was mocked by the industry — and then made it obsolete. BYD was a battery manufacturer — and is now the world's largest electric carmaker. TSMC was a contract manufacturer — and now controls global chip production.

None of these companies waited for low hanging fruits. None contented themselves with inflated visions. They did the hard thing: solved real problems, developed real technology, carried real risk.

Germany has Lilium. And Volocopter. And Sono Motors. And probably soon Isar Aerospace in the cemetery of inflated drones.