After reading the title I spent some time thinking about what the causes might be before reading the article. To my great amusement the reasons I consider machi

After reading the title I spent some time thinking about what the causes might be before reading the article. To my great amusement the reasons I consider machine learning to be a more vital field than statistics were all given as "structural problems with the CS research “business model”". :) Take the great recent success of deep learning. This is a method that could have never arisen in statistics, because at this point in time it has no (well, very little) supporting theory. But it works! Given a decade or so we'll likely have a good theory but we shouldn't let lack theory hinder development of applications, and in machine learning we generally don't. The classic Brieman "Two Cultures" paper is very relevant here.