Ok Cap'n, first of all, an expense needs to be mitigated, reduced or better yet, eliminated. Each one of those scientists is an asset, if they produce, pure and simple. It is much easier for a manager to manage expectations if a human asset thinks of himself as an expense, a drain on the enterprise rather than an integral cog in the machine that produces billions of dollars, that asset is much less likely to expect to be compensated true to his worth. He thinks his manager is doing him a favor by employing him. (or her). Most scientists (and engineers) I know sell themselves short. Maybe they have mastered organic chemistry,maybe it's nuclear physics, yet they think that what they do is just a support role to the business guy, who "crunches numbers" , meanwhile those numbers the business guy is crunching are a product of simple addition and subtraction, if you have a phd, you can crunch those numbers and with your knowledge of how the product or process works, you can make better business decisions than some MBA in his ivory tower. Or better yet, you can hire an MBA to crunch the numbers for you, then make the decisions.
Unfortunately technologists, with a few notable exceptions, relegate themselves to a subservient role to the MBA who partied his way through school, and is out partying while you burn the midnight oil making him money.
The people who make it to the 1% understand that it is very difficult to get there via a salary because in short order, more than half that salary can end up going to income taxes, fed, state and local, payroll taxes and other taxes. People who run the business on the other hand take their compensation by outright ownership in addition to a salary. Gains on ownership are taxed at a much lower rate and not subject to payroll taxes. A million dollars in salary nets less than $500,000 in most states, a million in capital gains can yield in the area of $800,000 after taxes, IF you choose to cash that gain in.... if you don't cash it in you don't pay the tax.
You seem like a pretty intelligent guy Capn, think about it, maybe instead of worrying about the cost of 100LL, you could be tooling around in a G650.
