But they invest in businesses that each have a plan that you know has a chance to work. Big difference between investing into the completely unknown. Besides, his 9/10 is way too optimistic. For basic research it is more like zero chance of profit because - it's just basic research to understand the problem and play around. More like particle research using expensive accelerators, not research on how can we use lasers to accomplish xyz (now that we already have them and know their physics exactly).Investors that invested into yet another Linux startup in the dot com boom had a high chance of failure - but those business all tried to be RedHat, not something completely unknown. And the subject of the business was an operating system, not something unknown. Your bet is on execution and the market, not on some yet unknown product.
sneak|7 years ago
> It's time to invest and avidly pursue a new wave of technological solutions to this problem - including those that are risky, unproven, even unlikely to work.
I don’t think you’ve really thought this argument through.
dang|7 years ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
ItsMe000001|7 years ago
And no, you did not think this through, or you are just grossly uninformed.
Example: https://youtu.be/ZTC_RxWN_xo
Private business only takes paths that are already visible. No investor spends money on the truly unknown.
You can downvote all you want as the small person you show yourself to be through it, facts will still remain facts not open to voting.