Fine. But I'm still not finding the private planes, yachts, mansions, or even houses with wife and children of people with careers in "applied" optimization.

Fine. But I'm still not finding the private planes, yachts, mansions, or even houses with wife and children of people with careers in "applied" optimization. Computing, startups, venture capital, lots of careers. "Applied" optimization? In the years after my Ph.D., I didn't hear of them. As I was teaching optimization in a business school, the phone didn't ring. The phone did ring for some statistics, one from a company with sales districts and one from a law firm.