Engelbart was "not recursive enough" in the sense that he didn't have a strong, sustained recursion; his tech improvements did not yield an increase in engineering velocity which was sufficient to produce tech improvements that would further improve his engineering velocity. He wasn't running on his own chips. Like Eurisko, he used his scientific prowess to buy some bonds (computer tech) that paid a relatively low coupon on further scientific prowess, and the interest payments didn't let him buy all that many more bonds.