I never said "blue sky". VCs won't fund research if it's done, written up, in a peer-reviewed journal of original research, and implemented in software written

I never said "blue sky". VCs won't fund research if it's done, written up, in a peer-reviewed journal of original research, and implemented in software written, tested, timed, and documented. Period. No research, of any form, any time, in any case, period. Stop. End. Instead, VCs, and their limited partners, want to see 'traction' in the market. If the traction is from some research, then that's a net negative because (1) it would be something it might be important to evaluate, more difficult to evaluate than just routine software, (2) might make the CEO more difficult to replace, (3) would let the CEO have an easier time telling the Board that they don't understand the business. Instead, VCs want a nice, simple, little business, with traction significant and growing like a weed, in a gigantic market, that can become a company worth $100 billion, that anyone, even a VC, could understand, run by a CEO who tends to drool a little and can easily be talked into signing a bad business deal. "Blue sky" has nothing to do with the situation.