Innovation has always been trowing money in pipes dream, because by definition everything that does not exist is an idea, a dream.
Most ideas fail. The people that spend their lives doing something are the people that create worthy things in the end, because they learn from failures.
"The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried."
"An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field." - Niels Bohr
There is this delusion coming from academics education that successful people are those that never fail. This is true in Academics, where all the knowledge is already known. But for a researcher or innovator you need to fail.
Even when most projects fail, those who do not gives enormous rewards.