But I doubt he would have been as critical of government support for projects had his own efforts been more successful since presumably the university partially supported his research (or at least didn't take the kind of hostile attitude he would have encountered at many corporations).
I think this particular situation shows that there is a difference between having expertise and having an ability to capitalize that expertise. Perhaps had he spent a little more time networking to find people who would be willing to support his ideas, things would have worked out better for him.
Universities are rife with such "idealism", a form of idealism that I increasingly think is misplaced. To try to put it in a nutshell: One requirement for sainthood is that you be persecuted. We seem to think that good people must suffer horribly as a means to prove their goodness. I'm increasingly disenchanted with the idea that one has to martyr oneself to be a good person, whether that means dying for the cause or just not getting paid adequately for your work. I think all that teaches people is that there are only two kinds of people: victims and victimizers and in order to be good you must be a victim because the other choice is intolerable. I have concluded that trying to be "good" by being a willing victim forces others into the role of victimizer even if they don't want to be there. So I believe that if one wants to genuinely do good in the world, one must pursue a paradigm of symbiotic exchange rather than letting people parasitically use you up and playing the role of martyr/victim.
Symbiotic exchange sounds rather like Capitalism. I don't think that means every thing one does has to be in pursuit of the almighty dollar. I haven't been here long, but I'm impressed with the quality of HN so far. I am struck by the fact that it was initially created as a means for people at Y-Combinator to get to know potential applicants -- ie although it's offered as a "free" service, it ultimately is part of their business strategy. It looks to me like this is why HN is a better run forum than many I have participated in which were all-volunteer. HN can't afford to cater to personal peccadilloes and personality quirks of a volunteer staff. It has to meet a certain professional standard. And to the degree that at least some of the members want to apply to Y-Combinator, the participants have motivation as well to remain professional and polite. It is not a good place to indulge in habits that promote flame-wars and the like because the purpose is not merely social. Not everyone here will have such a goal, but it still impacts group culture. An influential minority can go a long way towards shaping community behavior. For some members, there is potentially millions of dollars at stake (if they can get VC from Y-Combinator and launch a highly successful business). It's strong motivation to behave better than what you see in many online forums where everything is idealistically given away "free" and flame-wars and other problems are the rule, not the exception.
I was diagnosed late in life with a serious medical condition. Prior to my diagnosis, I was too ill to pursue a paid career. Many of the idealistic, talented and intelligent people I have known who routinely give away their work for free are also handicapped in some way. (Actually, I can't think of anyone who gives away substantial amounts of their time and skill on a regular basis who isn't seriously handicapped in some manner.) If you are handicapped, doing volunteer work has the easy terms that work for you. Moderating a forum, running a website part-time, and so on are things you can do when you feel up to it and no one can force you to be more consistent. And the quality of the work is generally consistent with the fact that you are unreliable, impaired, etc.
So while I still value some of the free resources made available by other people like me, now that I am well enough to work a full time job, I am somewhat less of a bleeding heart. I still think some things need to be "free" -- in terms of rights and also in terms of financial access -- but I think many of these resources would be of better quality than is currently available if the people running them were compensated in some manner. Non-profits don't operate without budgets. They still need money. That money is typically raised from the community based on the idea that the organization is offering something of value. They aren't "beggars". They are just doing work that has human value more than commercial value and therefore needs to be monetized without directly selling services.