[Research] isn’t looking for a better cigarette filter or a softer face tissue or a longer-lasting house paint, God help us. Everybody talks about research and practically nobody in this country’s doing it. We’re one of the few companies that actually hires men to do pure research. When most other companies brag about research, they’re talking about industrial hack technicians who wear white coats, work out of cookbooks, and dream up an improved windshield wiper for next year’s Oldsmobile…Here, and shockingly few other places in this country, men are paid to increase knowledge, to work toward no end but that.
— Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle
