[dogsgobork]

It's also possible that the greatest minds of our time aren't engaged in furthering our understanding of the universe, but instead devising more efficient ways of displaying internet advertising or faster stock trading algorithms.

[pas]

I've always felt that this is USDA Prime bullshit.

Einstein wasn't wasted away his years at the patent office.

Also you could say that the greatest minds of the 20th century all engaged in coming up with bigger and bigger explosions for the military.

And so on.

[dmazin]

That’s a great point.

The silver lining is that many of these companies publicly release their research. i.e. Rob Pike and Ken Thompson may be working on advertising, but we can still benefit from Golang.