Industrial history is full of freewheeling corporate research departments inventing the future for the benefit of all stakeholders. And of dangerous examples wh

Industrial history is full of freewheeling corporate research departments inventing the future for the benefit of all stakeholders. And of dangerous examples what happens when you either 1) lack this innovative capacity or 2) lack the foresight or courage to leverage the new technology. As a ginormous company, given the historical trends, Meta would be rather poorly positioned if it didn't have a research wing. We can view this also from the point of view how the resources are used for the benefit of innovation. Some companies have a distributed innovation budget (ie. 3M:s 15% time for all). A research department composing 15% of Meta:s personnel costs would be rather huge (I have no numbers what the actual cost is). So having a dedicated research function can be also viewed as a rather cost effective way to stay ahead of the curve if benchmarked in this context.