I love this idea. However I am not too surprised that YC is doing this. YC is a different kind of corporation. Instead of hiring engineers, they hire startups. And just like any well established company, they are now investing in R&amp;D. Make no mistake, there will be a commercial bent to the R&amp;D that YC does and there is nothing wrong about that. R&amp;D should not be just about publishing papers but advancing new ideas in the market too. So overall I hope this takes off and they bring ground-breaking research out of this venture.