> It was foundational research

In the 1980s there was a lot of "foundational research" (poorly re-inventing the wheel) for microcomputer people who did not know about the work done on large computers in the 1960s. Move fast and break things was also very much a thing for microcomputer manufacturers and most microcomputer software vendors. Look at how many releases software packages went through, and at what rate.

I think you're agreeing to disagree. His viewpoint, to me at least, is opposite to yours. Or at least parallel. He never said that today there's no foundational research.