That is a good point regarding relative biasses. Mind you...
There is no evidence that he could get a lot of money differently.
... That is blatantly false. There is overwhelming evidence that Eliezer could make a lot of money in other ways. Getting to the stage where there are a lot of people who decide to independently say your achievements are insignificant or low status in all sorts of ways is actually an impressive achievement in itself.
The combination of strategic competence, the ability to make a lot of people to get excited about your work and the ability to persuade others to give you money are a recipe for success just about anywhere.
(I have to down-vote the misuse of 'there is no evidence'. If you took that section out I could upvote.)
I just watched Transcendent Man about the singularity and Ray Kurzweil in particular. It's well-made, full-length, and includes the most popular criticisms of Kurzweil: that his prediction timeframes are driven by his own hope for immortality, that the timescale of his other predictions are too optimistic, that his predictions about the social outcomes of revolutionary technology are naively optimistic, and so on. Ben Goertzel and others get much face time.
You can rent or buy it on iTunes.