It's pretty hard for one person or even one small team to both (a) do advanced green-field research in whichever uncertain direction they feel most exited to explore, and (b) make a complete and polished saleable product which best meets the needs of a well-defined set of customers.

The skills, personalities, organizing principles, and methods involved are substantially different, and focusing on making a product has a tendency to cut off many conceptually valuable lines of inquiry based on financial motivations.

Notice that Bret Victor's goal (like most researchers) is not to become as rich as possible.

Whether researchers or product developers ultimately have more leverage is something of a chicken-and-egg question. To make an analogy, it's like asking who was more influential, Karl Marx or Otto von Bismarck.