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> 'true' (unrestrained) R&D is only possible if you have a monopoly

* Bell Labs

* IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center

* Xerox Parc

I always felt when DoJ was suing Microsoft for antitrust the best evidence of their monopoly was that Microsoft Research had started spitting out good work.

I think you're onto something wrt Google.

I think you present opinion of your former boss as if it were a fact.

Another commenter added some examples, I'll also add the whole public sector (research institutes, univerisities) and some governmental orgs. I did a lot of "pure" R&D (in the public sector and close vicinity) and never worked in a company even close to a monopoly.

A functional government has a monopoly on violence. Funding public sector R&D is tax money well spent, but it's still monopoly money.

well i'm glad it happened this way, rather than overzealous legislators ending the gravy train

it's so much more fulfilling to work on moonshot robotics compared to showing ads to people more efficiently