I believe Peter Thiel made a similar point when he said that monopolies (or at least, profit margins beyond sustenance) give companies breathing space to fund these types of things.
Peter Thiel's ideas about monopolies are ill-conceived.
In a competitive industry the life of corporations might be brutish, nasty and short. Yes. But the life of workers and customers can be quite nice---since companies are competing for them, too.
What are some examples of competitive industries with top-of-band comp? Based on what I've seen, when the going gets tough, companies would rather squeeze their workers than their investors (airline companies and pilots), since compensation falls within a range.
Do keep in mind that industries can be (un-) competitive in different ways. Eg there's a good argument to be made that banks don't compete in competitive markets for many of their products, but they sure compete for labour.
And I've wondered if the blurring of the line between research and product development at the likes of Google and Facebook (MS Research seems to still be an exception) is because they feel they have less breathing space?
Breathing space can also be taken up by stock market expectations. Did that old guard of research lab owners ever reach a similar level of valuation? My spontaneous guess explanation is that back then, stock markets were far more reluctant to price in immaterial advantages like market dominance or tech leadership if it wasn't backed by tangible assets like mining rights or factories.
