[jll29]

That's true, and it justifies why some things are still better done in a university environment (or as part of an academic collaboration) - it's not possible for everything to carve out something useful in the middle.

Executive patience, focus and planning horizon are the immediately next 1-4 quarters, years 2 and 3 and perhaps 5 if you are lucky and that's it, and they might not even be around in five years.

In academia, if you are stubborn and tenured and don't care about your short term success (publications, citations, awards) you can actually decide to implement a very long-term vision, depending on how much additional funding you need (if that is a lot, you will need to also convince funding agencies or philanthropists of your vision).

[j7ake]

Even in academia, short consistent wins are needed to ensure your lab stays open.

Heck even Andrew Wiles, someone who only needed pen and paper for research, had to publish papers during his 7 years working on Fermats last theorem.