[Leo]

“um, A, the lightbulb was invented by private inventors (edison)”

True. The point was that if these private inventors had the attitude that their research *had* to generate a profit, they would never have gotten anywhere. Research is exploratory; there are no guarantees. In fact, research in that time period was particularly productive because of a large appetite for risk-taking. This is absent if you try to run research like a business. Private inventors such as Edison didn’t make their money selling lightbulbs; they made money to support their research.

Every one of the universities you mention gets government assistance. Research scientists bring in tons of government grant money in order to conduct their research. Universities typically “tax” this grant money to cover overhead costs.

There is a reason why private industry does not do first-class research. Universities should not try to emulate that.