I think the argument being made there is that when you gather smart people together, with resources to work on a hard problem, they will tend to invent things o

I think the argument being made there is that when you gather smart people together, with resources to work on a hard problem, they will tend to invent things on the side which we didn't know we needed. An academic committee to decide what software was worth funding, in the 80s, would probably have come up with a very different list to yours. And would have hired people from safer, more academic, backgrounds than Sir Tim.