The Lipitor guy ($135b in sales) didn't get a cent on top of his salary (which many here would scoff at were it offered to them) -- and he has been laid off twice since then. In the sciences this kind of thing is the rule, not the exception.
And before HN starts with the "He deserves exactly what he got because he didn't negotiate for equity," I would like to point out that looking for a job in research science is nothing like looking for a job in software engineering. Scientists are seldom in a position to make demands. The market simply does not value science. It places plenty of value on the products which science is the rate-limiting step in creating, but because basic science is effectively a non-excludable good it seldom gets to capture any appreciable fraction of the value it creates. The patent system was a valiant attempt to fix this, but it hasn't lived up to anybody's hopes.
> "That sucks. I'm glad I'm not a scientist!"
Just hope that in 30 years when you get diagnosed with cancer your cure won't be in the set {things that would have been discovered if medical research had gotten >2% of health care expenditures} \ {things that were discovered anyway}. This is a problem that affects us all.
I don't think many people on HN would say "He deserves exactly what he got because he didn't negotiate for equity" or "That sucks. I'm glad I'm not a scientist!"
edit: I think I may have just been proven wrong, nevermind...
It just doesn't value most scientists. If you produce high quality science on a consistent, constant basis ... trust me, you'll get the big $$$.
But if you get lucky because you stumbled on something great, that's not science. That's winning the lottery. And you didn't win the lottery, your employer did. Your employer knows it had nothing to do with you and had everything to do with luck.
If Lipitor guy had a convincing argument that he could have another $135b breakthrough, that he could be consistent, do you really think everybody would tell him to screw off? I bet they would easily lay half that amount at his feet.
No, it doesn't. There have been an ample number of scientists that have produced spectacular work on a consistent basis. No luck involved. And they have been highly valued.
What you don't want to admit is that scientists are like basketball players when it comes to how they're valued. You're either a superstar or you're worthless ... and being really good is equivalent to being worthless. You need to be spectacular.
I'm not trying to offend, that's just how the market works. I don't see anybody complaining about the market dynamics of athletes.
2. Science is sub-optimally close to the "extremistan" end of the "extremistan-mediocristan" spectrum
I believe both (why do you think I would "not want to admit" #2?), but the claim I have been making is #1. The existence of well-compensated scientists is not evidence against #1 because #1 is an aggregate statement and #2 should guarantee the existence of well-compensated scientists regardless of #1.
Now let's talk about #2.
> There have been an ample number of scientists that have produced spectacular work on a consistent basis. No luck involved.
Examples?
Before you try to p-hack this one, let me specify the null model: scientist as prospector. Like gold in the ground, ideas cluster. Skill and resources determine your rate of sifting through earth, but at the end of the day initial positioning matters a hell of a lot. The founders of a new field are all but guaranteed decades of consistent productivity, but in order to maximize the amount of gold dug out of the ground it still makes sense to devote considerable resources to surveyors who haven't yet hit paydirt.
What would I see as evidence of the "skill" view? Einstein before 1906. People who are able to consistently make breakthroughs.
What do I see as counterevidence? Einstein after 1906. An overabundance of one-hit-wonders. Hundreds of theoretical papers in the arXiv that make the construction of GR look like a rite of passage rather than a singular achievement -- with the exception that Einstein happened to be right where they happened to be wrong or useless (it's not like either could tell ahead of time how things would turn out). Epistemology: correct useful ideas are very, very sparse in the set of plausible ideas.
> I don't see anybody complaining about the market dynamics of athletes.
Doubling the number of competent-but-not-superstar basketball players would add little marginal value (more games, maybe).
Doubling the number of competent-but-not-superstar scientists would about double the marginal discovery rate of science, assuming the scientist-as-prospector model.