-----Original Message-----
From: John S. Denker
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2001 6:54 AM
3) Money, however, does tell us something. Being highly paid is an
indication -- a rough indication -- that somebody thinks you are working on
an important problem.
The word important may have different meanings to different people so let me
put my 2 cents worth into the discussion.
In my experience in industry, being highly paid is an indication that you
are considered to be someone with unique skills/knowledge/ability who
clearly has contributed, contributes or will likely contribute to the
acquisition of significant revenues and profits for a company. Being highly
paid is not an indication that you worked hard in college and got good
grades, although there may be a strong correlation.
There are many physicists at General Atomics who are working on very
important problems such as plasma confinement/fusion energy research, but
they are not nearly as highly paid as those who are working on less
important problems that bring in significant revenues and profits to the
company.