Companies often prefer to fund research and development (R&D) through acquisition because it allows management to understand whether a new technology is likely to work before they need to commit capital. In this system, venture capitalists pay for market-wide R&D and absorb the costs of failed experiments. As a result, large public companies are incentivized to focus their internal efforts on incremental improvements.
Because firms only provide relatively modest bonuses for valuable innovations, talented employees know they're better off starting their own companies if they want to be duly compensated for the value they create.
Since this dynamic benefits both companies and their talented employees, it's unlikely to change. But, I wonder how this is impacting the types of R&D that are being funded. Would a venture capitalist have been willing to fund the research that eventually became the internet?