[bglazer]

The problem with private R&D is that it's quite difficult for any individual company to fully capture the benefits of research. There are lots of ways this happens. Company does innovative research then gets copied by other firms. Or, they don't recognize an idea's potential but another company does. Or, the research is useful twenty or fifty years in the future. Or, the research is very useful both for them and for many, many other fields and they're only able to capture a tiny sliver of the total value.

For a couple concrete examples: Xerox-PARC did incredibly innovative computing research that turned Apple into a trillion dollar company. For a more modern take: DeepSeek literally used ChatGPT to build their own cheaper competitor.

So, R&D is incredibly societally useful and it's in the collective interest of companies to have access to research results to keep them innovative and competitive. But, it doesn't make sense for any one company to actually do R&D. It really only works as a public good.

[zmibes]

In this scenario would it not be attractive for investors to fund multiple (all, even) companies conducting the research into a given field/advancement knowing they will loose money on most but one will capture the benefit? (which, per the premise, is greater than the cost)

[bglazer]

I think this happens to some degree with venture firms taking multiple bets on multiple companies working in the same area. The individual companies are still hamstrung, though. Why would ten companies all take the same bet on a speculative technology, especially if they know that other companies are already working on the same ideas?

Also, not to be glib, but it sounds like you’re describing a very wealthy investor willing to spend a lot of money to advance social good by broadly funding an individually unprofitable research goal. That's just a government right?

[zmibes]

thank you for this thoughtful response