I was surprised the author didn't highlight the pressure that the stock market exerts on companies to produce short term gains. Isn't that what's discouraging long term focused R&D? Seems there has been a shift from in house R&D to acquiring companies.
Is it relevant here? Google, for example, spends a small fortune on research.
Google is the exception, and as I understand it, Google stock doesn't carry with it the same voting rights that most stock does. Larry and Sergei want to retain control so that they can fund lots of research and not have activist shareholders vote to return the funds to shareholders.
I don't know how this squares with Google's research on self-driving cars, say, or IBM's efforts in solid state physics.