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You know, I imagine you are aware that the "gather brilliant people, then get out of the way" philosophy is something I believe deeply in.

I've long worshipped the ideal of the Institute for Advanced Study, which is exactly as you describe: "gather smart people and give them absolute security in terms of salary, legalization, career, etc., while imposing no requirements." I loved reading the Usefulness of Useless Knowledge by Abraham Flexner, and would still recommend to anyone. Freedom, curiosity, and doing something "for its own sake"; these are the idealas I want to devote my life to.

That said, as I grow older I think it is more complicated. Why? I'll name drop some more and give a Feynman quote:

When I was at Princeton in the 1940s I could see what happened to those great minds at the Institute for Advanced Study, who had been specially selected for their tremendous brains and were now given this opportunity to sit in this lovely house by the woods there, with no classes to teach, with no obligations whatsoever. These poor bastards could now sit and think clearly all by themselves, OK? So they don't get any ideas for a while: They have every opportunity to do something, and they're not getting any ideas. I believe that in a situation like this a kind of guilt or depression worms inside of you, and you begin to worry about not getting any ideas. And nothing happens. Still no ideas come. Nothing happens because there's not enough real activity and challenge: You're not in contact with the experimental guys. You don't have to think how to answer questions from the students. Nothing!

— Richard Feynman

I think this quote isn't completely wrong. Broadly, I think it is healthy to have some friction. People get ideas from the most inexplicable places. The feedbacks of human life can keep you grounded. And, when ideas don't come, having some practical, well-defined task can keep you from falling into a rut. I mean, when I have logistical tasks to do, I often feel better afterwards, even if it's not what I am really passionate about. It's often just healthy.

Again, I say all this even as someone who worships the freedom ideal. I think there is an antinomy within freedom. For one thing, the more free you are, the more responsible you are. And, when you do have a constraint, transcending it is freedom. What I mean here is this: sometimes it's easier to have freedom defined out of something else, than freedom qua freedom.

This train of thought is one reason why I want to start a company. Broadly, the financial constraint of a company is a good source of friction.

What I imagine: give researchers freedom, with the exception of the friction from working on a very practical goal: providing a service people value.

I think with a gym for the mind, this "practical goal" is complementary to the more basic goal of understanding how the human mind works.

Whenever basic research is going slow, you have "guppy" problems to help you feel productive (which I think is important for people).

I also think with a company, in exchange for working on these "dirtier" problems, researchers would have capital to aid their ideas. E.g., in the long run I think our "gym for the mind" might want to buy, say, functional MRI machines.

But of course, researchers should be given time to focus on what they think is interesting, and in doing so, should not be policed in any capacity. (I wonder if that's easier in a private company than in a public-facing university that receives tax dollars?)

Anyways, that's a high level overview of my position. Roughly, the ideal of absolute freedom is great, but it could also be true that the journey (moving towards absolute freedom) may be better than the destination (being "at" absolute freedom).

Still, I am open for conversation on this point. I think it varies per person what the right level is. I myself want a lot of freedom!