If I was putting my own money in a project I'd definitely prefer the top 50% programmers with good organizational and interpersonal skills and concrete business plans over the top 5% developers who might just use their near-market salary to contribute to their favourite open source projects and work on esoteric problems that interest them. (I'd pay more attention to technical ability with "VC-istan" growth expectations and incentive structures)

I have a feeling that organizations part-funded by governments that hire intellectuals on near-market salaries to work on projects that interest them (and do the odd bit of teaching) already exist: they're called universities. I realise the plan here sheds a layer of bureaucracy and gives the productive a slice of potential profits they generate, but I think the comparison is reasonable, and I certainly wouldn't pump money into academia with the expectation of collecting returns on it.