I don't fully understand the argument that a long piece of work will leave you behind when you're done. What if you've qualitatively moved the field forward while the "competition" simply made incremental progress? Aren't you ahead then?
Regis McKenna made a point at 4:30 "The span from the first transistor to the first microprocessor is going to about a third" he was discussing product innovation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z13NI0SuyA&t=2912s
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“There will be certain points of time when everything collides together and reaches critical mass around a new concept or a new thing that ends up being hugely relevant to a high % of people or businesses. But it’s hard to predict those. I don’t believe anyone can” -Marc Andreessn