Regardless of whether the amount is enough to fund scientific research endeavors (which range at > 250k/ year), Breakout Labs is a reflection of the current nature of scientific research.<p>The NIH or other foundations tend only to fund "safe" research proposals. Someone with a more radical idea with no funding resources is effectively shut down. 50k may not be enough to research something for a year, but it may be enough to prototype an idea. Win for creativity, win for science.
I hope this style of funding takes off. I'll be the first to admit that I buy into the hype around social, mobile, realtime, and all those buzzwords for consumer apps but the future I dream about involves taking on the bigger challenges, basically the ones outlined in the Grand Challenges for Engineering: <a href="http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/</a>
Ideally, they would be a hub for innovative researchers on a shoestring-budget that could end up working together on even more ambitious projects. Or a good leader might be able to recruit from the applicant pool to break up a larger project into small groups that could focus on specific parts of the research.
Hm, and just a few weeks ago Thiel was predicting the "end of the future": <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/278758/end-future-peter-thiel" rel="nofollow">http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/278758/end-future-pet...</a><p>Bipolar much?