They're expecting what you promised them when they handed over the money. That is "more money" for most investors but that isn't the sole universal human objective. Money has to serve an instrumental purpose and if one of your purposes is something that can't currently be achieved, simply getting more money won't help. You need to give that money to some venture that might actually be able to achieve it. I have no doubt there are at least a few very rich people out there who just have sci-fi nerd dreams and want to see someone go to Mars, go to Jupiter, discover alien life, rebuild dinosaurs, or create a truly autonomous entirely new form of artificial life just to see if they can. If it makes money, great. If it doesn't, what else was I going to do? Die with $60 billion in the bank instead of $40 billion?