I think their role is a bit more complex than that. In most universities, there is a teaching and mentoring role to undergraduates, which I think can play a hu

I think their role is a bit more complex than that. In most universities, there is a teaching and mentoring role to undergraduates, which I think can play a huge role in the direction of those students careers. There is also a domain expertise that gets built around these people - they become walking encyclopedias of their field which has value for society, government, and industry to take their advice. Also, like your TED link, I think there is an 'incubating' role for tenured professors - some profs have an incredible amount of innovation that gets inspired by and spin-off from their labs. Particularly if the prof has entrepreneurial tenancies or at least values commercializing and/or implementing outcomes of their research. If you want to get university or country success compared to production of tenured professors, its becomes even further complicated. I would argue that the opportunity for collaboration and funding for students and equipment is close in importance to skill of the tenured prof. This is probably what you are saying with paying more to the empirical sciences (along with more tenure spots) - and I agree with you on that. The reason I posted is as an interesting addition to the common conversation on HN of the role of academics. I think a tenured professor is a quite good job and role. In contrast, nontenured senior academics are IMO not that well compensated (salary or otherwise) for the amount and skill of work they do, at least compared to industry or entrepreneurship. (Background: I am a PhD student, but looking at entrepreneurship rather than academia long term. I find it concerning the number of my friends and colleagues planning academic careers vs the number of positions that will be open). Thanks for the TED link, I hadn't seen this one and its a very interesting field. I'll have to restrain on comments to keep this on topic.