[onewaystreet]

Thiel isn't saying that scientists don't want to make money, but that there is an attitude shared by many of them that making money is somehow wrong. Thiel believes that this attitude is just cover for the fact that so few scientists are able to make money from their discoveries even if they want to.

You should go back and listen again to what Thiel said, this isn't something he believes. He is describing society's reaction to technological innovation. Steve Jobs, Apple and the iPhone are good examples. Is iPhone the greatest invention of the 21st century? Did Jobs create more value than Einstein? You would think so just going by the media attention they have received.

[james1071]

Thought he said something quite different, which is that people explain the fact that scientists don't make money from their discoveries by saying that they aren't interested in doing so.

His point was that it was the nature of scientific discovery that made it hard to capture any value from it, not a characteristic of scientists.

[j_lev]

Scientist making money in today's news: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2004/01/31/national/creator...

[jonalmeida]

Thanks for clearing that up.

The way I see it is that science refers to research in a very fundamental sense. Computer Science, Physics, etc. I don't understand just yet how you could put a value on things like that.