I use to believe that the business model of Microsoft was just selling an overpriced Operating System and Microsoft Office to governments and businesses. I used to believe that the business model of Google was gathering data and selling accurate ads.
I was recently surprised to discover they have research subsidiaries called Microsoft Research and Google Deepmind
Microsoft Research employs more than 1,000 computer scientists, physicists, engineers, and mathematicians, including Turing Award winners, Fields Medal winners, MacArthur Fellows, and Dijkstra Prize winners.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Research
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_DeepMind
The founder of Deep Mind received a Nobel Prize in Chemistry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demis_Hassabis
Do they do actual research here or is this junk science?
They couldn’t possibly develop cutting edge technology if they weren’t doing any research.
Sure we can laugh about Windows and Office being cutting edge, but they were at one point, and that’s why they still make bank by getting it on 80% of all computers (I’m guessing, don’t hold me to that number)