What I was getting at though, is that most individuals can't take a share in that responsibility, even if they have the ability and the desire. This is an enormous waste. Not to make light of Elon Musk's accomplishments, but it is not his intelligence and leadership ability that make him exceptional (though he is a phenomenon in both respects), but rather those traits coupled with a solid bit of seed money in the form of the Paypal sale, and getting into two industries that were poised to explode, and, frankly, some luck. You can argue the extent to which he made those industries explode, but IIRC commercial space flight was, in 2003, considered a very dumb idea to start a business around, and electric cars were something we knew were coming sooner or later, but that would remain a money loser for a long time. It took someone with a substantial fortune, and the willingness to risk losing it, to prove both of those propositions false. (And even then, in SpaceX's case, a lot of their success is due to landing NASA contracts, which I've got no problem with - but it's not capitalism.)

So, where is the Elon Musk of high-energy physics? Where is the Elon Musk of terraforming, both off-planet and on Earth to reverse climate change? What of cancer, antibiotics, longevity treatment, machine intelligence? Et cetera. These are equally important problems we face, and if we rely on 'heroes' to take them on, we might be waiting for a long time. And again, by 'heroes' I don't mean people with the ability and the intelligence and the desire to solve these problems - we have plenty of those - rather people with those qualities and the resources to truly take them on. Those are rare, indeed. Contrast Elon Musk with Notch, who are of comparable means now, yet Notch has quite clearly stated that if anything he does starts to have an impact again, he will shitcan it immediately. What a profoundly awful attitude to have. Sadly, I think you'll find more like him in that caste than Elon.

As I say, it seems like an enormous waste. Capital markets alone are not up to the task. For what it's worth, I'm not trying to subtly advocate for socialism or something either. I don't know what the solution to the problem is, but it is a problem.