> Vanilla deep learning is so far ahead of what most companies use for analytics, that very little research is needed to offer a product with significant advantages over what's in practice now
But by "vanilla deep learning", I think you are referring to this vs research into new models and algorithms. I think "research" in the context of "research-heavy start-ups" is not about new algorithms, but about finding ways to use even "vanilla deep learning" on their available datasets. Quite a lot of papers at conferences, for example, are not about new algorithms, but about new ways to use old algorithms.
But by "vanilla deep learning", I think you are referring to this vs research into new models and algorithms. I think "research" in the context of "research-heavy start-ups" is not about new algorithms, but about finding ways to use even "vanilla deep learning" on their available datasets. Quite a lot of papers at conferences, for example, are not about new algorithms, but about new ways to use old algorithms.