It is difficult to de-couple these two things, because companies is where science translates to the real world. We need more direct funding from the rich gover

It is difficult to de-couple these two things, because companies is where science translates to the real world. We need more direct funding from the rich governments for the kinds of research described in the article, which would address the associated problems “on paper”, while still allowing translation of it in startups etc and ultimately benefitting the general public. So the problem is not so much that companies sponsor some (!) research, but that the governments simply don’t invest nearly as much into public R&D as they need or could (while preferring to pour money into the military etc.). As a result, academics have no choice but follow other funding sources to survive in the already hyper-competitive scientific world. Hence, we should not put the blame on them, but rather on the public funding sources.