I agree that the conditions you listed are necessary for being a successful researcher. However, even if somebody were to meet those crtieria, it seems like they would still have little to no impact, since robotics capabilities research is such a popular and capacity-constrained field.

I.e. if I became a researcher at Deepmind / other labs, I would probably be taking a spot that another strong researcher would otherwise fill, limiting my marginal impact. Thus, my impact as a researcher would be close to zero, while at a startup, I could at least potentially have some impact.

Do you generally agree with this assessment?