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.
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.