In this paper I attempt to make a case for anarchy in research against the current practice of picking winners in universities at advanced levels of education and research. By considering a paradigmatic example of freedom in speculative intellectual activities leading to unintended consequences of enormous benefit to mankind, I try to substantiate a case for this. The example I consider is the way issues in the foundations of mathematics paved the way for what came to be known as the IT revolution. It is a counter-factual narrative and may – hopefully, will – provide an antidote to the current orthodoxy’s regimented non-vision of “picking winners”, ex ante, without any historical substantiation.