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The part about synergy between faculties is accurate. Having strong pure math academics helps out the various applied math departments in indirect ways that I'v
by hntrader 6y ago
The part about synergy between faculties is accurate. Having strong pure math academics helps out the various applied math departments in indirect ways that I've seen.
This is a shame. Pure math is a discipline with the most out of whack discrepancy between public positive externality and private benefit, even more than in physics. Pure math discoveries often have unexpected downstream benefits decades later as they percolate slowly into applied domains in unexpected ways, and its discoverers get little credit and no financial reward. Terence Tao should be getting paid in the millions for his work.
- soVeryTired 6y agoHe won the breakthrough prize, so he literally has been paid millions.
- hntrader 6y agoI meant annual comp, but yes that's a good step
- mhh__ 6y agoTao is arguably one of the most famous mathematicians on earth, I'm pretty sure he's on a decent salary.
- hntrader 6y agoHe's on about 500k/year. It's not enough. That's a not uncommon total package for a reasonably experienced SV engineer, it's not fitting for one of the foremost pure mathematicians of our generation. It's because most of his output is positive externality, his employer capturing little of his value creation except for the prestige & teaching output, which must be less than 10% of his current value proposition to society.
- canjobear 6y agoYou can look up the salary of any UC employee here. https://ucannualwage.ucop.edu/wage/ https://ucannualwage.ucop.edu/wage/ Yes, Terence Tao is doing pretty well.
- bzbarsky 6y agoJust looking at UCLA employees sorted by gross pay is interesting; Tao ends up around #192 on the list. Mostly due to the medical school, plus some people with titles like "INTERCOL ATH HEAD COACH EX" and "INTERCOL ATH COACH AST EX". The top 3 (and #5) are all "HEAD COACH".
- MisterSandman 6y agoSuper hot take here but I genuinely find it disgusting how many money American Universities spend on sporting events and sports, while also somehow not paying their student athletes.
- hntrader 6y agoAnd their support of the NFL which leaves their students with CTE. We could say it's their voluntary choice to participate but when they're being offered such a juicy carrot to trade off against their health, some people are going to favor the former. It all makes sense when we consider the University is foremost a business.