In short big philanthropy needs a component that looks a lot like the venture capital industry, and doesn't currently have it. Lots of smaller, big risk, potentially game changing bets rather than stultifying into safe big-budget, incremental institutional irrelevance.
In this case, for example, this research was rescued from years further of oblivion by a funding source that was willing to take a risk.
Much thinking has taken place on this. You might look at some of Aubrey de Grey's early publications on the triangular log jam for example:
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/12/peter-thiel-encou...
In short big philanthropy needs a component that looks a lot like the venture capital industry, and doesn't currently have it. Lots of smaller, big risk, potentially game changing bets rather than stultifying into safe big-budget, incremental institutional irrelevance.
In this case, for example, this research was rescued from years further of oblivion by a funding source that was willing to take a risk.
Much thinking has taken place on this. You might look at some of Aubrey de Grey's early publications on the triangular log jam for example:
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2004/06/the-curious-case-...