Great piece. It's a great example of the dark sides of results-orientation, accountability, transparency, and the fear of punishment from spending "Other People

Great piece. It's a great example of the dark sides of results-orientation, accountability, transparency, and the fear of punishment from spending "Other People's Money." These things are good, but when they take over the entire process, we've got problems; things need to swing back and settle into a new equilibrium that's more tolerant. These are exactly the kind of things that governments and universities with large endowments were good at funding. Right now, we're dependent on large corporations like Alphabet subsidizing moonshots to do this kind of basic research (and as some recent articles indicate, investors are already getting antsy about these.) Short-termism discourages deep thinking and deep working. VCs already understand that one winner subsidizes all the losers; so too is it with basic / speculative research. Until we're will to culturally accept, openly and without reservation, that there will be waste and that fact is OK, we're not going to get anywhere.