[thrwayaistartup]

The open secret is that top-quartile R1 CS faculty positions aren't coveted anymore and don't attract the best like they used to.

The choice is now between increasingly tenuous/meaningless tenure after 5-10 years and a $500K/year lower bound for 10-12 years. That choice is... not a hard choice for anyone who values intellectual freedom. And the right answer sure as shit isn't the faculty position.

A good 50% of those faculty chasing chasing NeurIPS papers are doing so because at least once before going up for tenure they will apply for positions at big tech. They end up coming on not just non-executive, but often outside of management and at the bottom of the (Top IC)-[1-2] total comp band. If they net an offer they'll usually leave. The major barrier to an offer is usually ego and "is this personal actually humble enough to be useful to other people".

[titanomachy]

Much of this could be true, but I’ve seen R1-tenure-caliber PhDs come on staff at top industry labs for a lot more than the pay you’re suggesting.

[thrwayaistartup]

Hence "lower bound".

[feoren]

> a $500K/year lower bound for 10-12 years

I don't care if you are talking about top talent here; that is an insane thing to say. As a lower bound? What percentage of software engineers / AI practitioners / data scientists are making $500k/year? 0.1%?