>Anybody can be 'possessed' by an idea, but it is clear that Silicon Valley has too many smart and well educated people wasting their time on trifles, their choices significantly retard what ought to be natural advantages.

Look, I like criticizing Silicon Valley for its ad-dollar silliness as much as anyone else, but that's fundamentally down to what VCs and angel investors are willing to fund. Everyone would work on Mars colonization, self-driving cars, and artificial intelligence if they could. Nobody pays you for that, though.