They guy who figured out how to land a rocket on a barge is a spacex employee who is an expert in control theory, who was probably hired by another employee of Elon Musk. So I’m not really sure what you comparison means.
Can't help but think that if learning to get really good at robotics is a strategic goal, then that's something which might pay off later.
when his 100% robotic and autonomous ships mine an asteroids and bring back huge payloads we'll still probably see articles like this.