I think there is a bit of exaggeration on the non-availability of grant money for research in applied science/technology. @sama acknowledges the adequacy of fun

I think there is a bit of exaggeration on the non-availability of grant money for research in applied science/technology. @sama acknowledges the adequacy of funds for applied research explicitly, "[1] Funding for technological development is actually relatively high, but funding for fundamental research keeps getting cut. Investors want to fund incremental progress—and the world has gotten very good at delivering that. This is more valuable than it sounds; incremental progress compounds quickly." This is true of industrial research and to an extent, academia. It conforms with my experience. That said, the skills required to write great grants and schmooze with grant-givers are quite different from that needed to do quality research in science or engineering. So the academic researcher community in science and technology is whittled down to the small set of {those good at research}∩ {those good at writing grants} + ⊂{those good at writing grants} + geniuses