List: The world’s best inventions weren’t made for profit.

1. The internet. (The government & Tim Berners-Lee.)

2. Penicillin. “Florey believed it would be inappropriate to patent penicillin, but learned his lesson when some of his American collaborators did just that… Florey took no profit for himself.”
—http://time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,33700,00.html

3. AC power & modern electricity. (Tesla)
“Yet Tesla died destitute.”
—http://inventors.about.com/od/tstartinventions/a/Nikola_Tesla.htm

4. Phone. “Meucci was recognized as the first inventor of the telephone by the US House.” “ was unable to raise sufficient funds to pay for the patent application… In 1861 his cottage was auctioned.”
—http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Meucci

5. Lightbulb. “Göbel the first practical bulb… in 1854, a quarter of a century before Edison’s patent.”
—http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_G%C3%B6bel

Yes he died pennyless too.

6. Radio. “Tesla is now credited with inventing modern radio as well; since the Supreme Court overturned Marconi’s patent in 1943 in favor of Tesla’s earlier patents.”
—http://inventors.about.com/od/tstartinventions/a/Nikola_Tesla.htm

7. Almost everything else - through state funding of science & university research.

The point? While we all love for-profit economics, let’s not exaggerate their role either. At best they tend to succeed after government acceleration of new technologies.


from
http://newsrogue.com/list-the-worlds-best-inventions-werent-made-for-profit/

to corporations providing funding, or toward the goal of starting a spinoff company including the professors.

...is basically what the economy of northern California is built on: public and private partnerships.

laissez faire capitalism--and the corporatocracy it has spawned--has nearly eliminated innovation


our culture repackages and re-brands endlessly; always chooses the safe, proven and conventional; and stifles any sign of creative thinking.

Texas Instruments and Intel were started by engineers whose employers wouldn't allow them to work on new technology. Back in the 1950's, Univac corporation was ahead of IBM in computer development. However, the company's "genius" CEO cut research because "computers were so expensive, there was no sustainable market for them".

The GUI (Graphical User Interface) such as Windows, the mouse, object-oriented programming, and other computer innovations were invented back in the 1970's at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center). Because the hardware necessary to run it at that time cost about $20,000, the "genius" executives at Xerox cancelled the program since few people could afford to pay that much money for a computer.

Of course, in the early 1980's, hardware costs began dropping. Apple came out with the technology in the Macintosh, and a few years later, Microsoft adopted the technology. To my knowledge, Xerox is no longer in the computer business.

add all the advancements that came about from the space program (like the silicon chip) that was all public funds and done for no profit.

how about the Salk polio vaccine?

or more antithetical to the progress of our species

than is capitalism and the "profit motive."