[divbzero]

Being a professor at a research institution is not too far from what you describe. You need to persuade the rich man that you are worth funding (i.e. grants) but with that you can hire the smartest people you can find to take on something challenging, get paid a modest but decent salary, and have a small equity share in whatever you create.

[dharmab]

Sometimes you can exit with much more than that. A family member who spent decades in research was able to get the IP rights to some of their work and is running a stealth mode startup to develop it further.