Tell that to Sebastian Thrun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Thrun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Thrun), whose work on the Google driverless ca

Tell that to Sebastian Thrun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Thrun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Thrun), whose work on the Google driverless car project (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_driverless_car http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_driverless_car) and current position as a Google Fellow owes so much to his successful work on previous DARPA challenges (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge). Granted, the challenges cited above didn't directly provide any market-ready products, but the practically-minded research and development they induced significantly advanced the algorithmic and engineering know-how available to those looking to create marketable artifacts. More generally, reputation is hugely important among researchers and head-to-head competition is a cost-effective way to generate and distribute reputation.