Readers respond to the October 2025 issue

"New sources of funding from individuals or family offices should serve to accelerate innovation in resource-rich environments with passionate inventors, scientists and academics. As long as the latitude to explore stays constant and the intentions of the sponsors remain in the public interest, I foresee a net positive impact. Recruiting more billionaires who might otherwise not have invested in scientific endeavors could fuel additional advancements."

"In Billionaire Science, for Better or Worse [From the Editor], David M. Ewalt suggests that with cuts to government funding, many researchers are going to have to rely on businessand, yes, billionaires. He also cautions that such billionaire science can go wrong. Most, if not all, self-made billionaires exploited a singular focus in their field with limited diversification. This offers both risks and opportunities in science."

"As a long-time subscriber and a poet whose poem Extravehicular Activity appeared in your April 2023 issue [Meter], I'd like to offer my take on billionaire science as a prose poem: The problem with billionaire science is billionaires are smart enough to make boatloads of money and stupid enough to think making boatloads of money also makes them universal geniuses who know everything about everything and who therefore do not need to give prolonged attention to anything besides making boatloads of money."

Cuts to government funding are driving many researchers to seek support from private sources, including wealthy individuals and family offices. Private and billionaire funding can supply abundant resources and accelerate innovation in resource-rich environments with passionate inventors, scientists, and academics. Such funding carries risks when donors impose narrow priorities, reflect limited diversification, or lack sustained attention. Institutional pressures to publish and limited public funding steer research toward fundable, incremental projects rather than unique, exploratory questions. If private sponsors preserve latitude to explore and act in the public interest, private funding can yield net positive advances while requiring vigilance about motivations and oversight.

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