Ask HN: How would you start something similar to Fast Forward Labs?

Fast Forward Labs (now part of Cloudera) was something like a research lab building prototypes "focus on taking technologies that are just becoming possible, and making them useful."

I've been thinking about it and came to the conclusion that it'd be a great fit to me to be working on something similar. I'm a Software Engineer working for several years as an AI consultant for several companies, but I don't want to directly code for money and also I don't want to hire a bunch of people to do the coding for me.

Do you know similar companies?

What do you think about this business model? How would you start with something similar?