This is a potential pitfall of private research. Ideally any real scientist who is earnest and dedicated about his or her work and is passionate about its benef

This is a potential pitfall of private research. Ideally any real scientist who is earnest and dedicated about his or her work and is passionate about its benefit to humanity or contribution to human knowledge would, upon making a breakthrough like that, feel the need to share it. Look at the plot of Atlas Shrugged: completely unrealistic; Galt is a disgusting sociopath who invents a way to remove resource constraints from the world, essentially destroying markets and capitalism, poverty and hunger, and refuses to share it with humanity so he can hold out for... resources in exchange. These things don't happen. Scientists don't try to keep their work under wraps -- it's the business people who own them that do. The secret private work that these people are doing is a chain around their neck which stops them from being real scientists. Some are willing to give that up for money and work at a lab that doesn't publish. Some are willing to give that up out of a sense of patriotic duty and work in intelligence. It's fantastic that there are private research labs like MSR that pay well and DO publish so there isn't a forced choice between money and being a real scientist for the lucky few who work there.