DanArmak comments on Stupid Questions Thread - January 2014 - Less Wrong
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How much does a genius cost? MIRI seems intent on hiring a team of geniuses. I’m curious about what the payroll would look like. One of the conditions of Thiel’s donations was that no one employed by MIRI can make more than one-hundred thousand a year. Is this high enough? One of the reasons I ask is I just read a story about how Google pays an extremely talented programmer over 3 million dollars per year - doesn't MIRI also need extremely talented programmers? Do they expect the most talented to be more likely to accept a lower salary for a good cause?
Many such geniuses (top intellectual performers in fields where they can out-perform the median by several orders of magnitude) choose their work not just on the basis of payment, but what they work on, where, how, and with whom (preferring the company of other top performers).
If MIRI were to compete with Google at hiring programmers, I expect money be important but not overwhelmingly so. Google let you work with many other top people in your field, develop and use cool new tech, have big resources for your projects, and provides many non-monetary workplace benefits. MIRI lets you contribute to existential risk reduction, work with rationalists, etc.