Knuth's funding was a little tight in the beginning but he got $20k from Addison-Wesley, a sabbatical year from Stanford, and then a cool million from the NSF:

Knuth's funding was a little tight in the beginning but he got $20k from Addison-Wesley, a sabbatical year from Stanford, and then a cool million from the NSF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dnNqJStsNM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dnNqJStsNM