4 ms·
Most of the bright people who could potentially come up with a major breakthrough would rather make >= 10x the money working as quants for hedge funds, software
by henning 5y ago
Most of the bright people who could potentially come up with a major breakthrough would rather make >= 10x the money working as quants for hedge funds, software engineers/data scientists/product managers at FAANG or other adtech, or developing copy-and-paste pump and dump shitcoins named after Elon Musk's dog.
- q-big 5y agoIn my experience, it is not really the money in the corporate job market that drives these people away from research: Not USA, but I know some really highly talented physicists who now work as rather badly paid software developers. Lesson: outstanding skills in and passion for physics not necessarily tranfer into high pay in the corporate job market. It is rather the politicization and lack of perspective in academia that makes these people leave academia: doing your PhD/doctorial degree in physics already bears a high opportunity cost, so you really do that because you have a deep passion for physics and not because you expect a high pay.