LED Inventor and Employer Settle for $8.1M (2005)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/12/business/worldbusiness/12light.html?_r=1&

by jlaurito • 12 years ago

34 15 12 years ago

nytimes.com

jacquesm• 12 years ago

That was peanut money compared to the value of the invention.

jonah3• 12 years ago

Yeah, far short of the initial $190 million award.

jjoonathan3• 12 years ago

The Lipitor guy ($135b in sales) didn't get a cent on top of his salary (which many here would scoff at were it offered to them) -- and he has been laid off twice since then. In the sciences this kind of thing is the rule, not the exception.

And before HN starts with the "He deserves exactly what he got because he didn't negotiate for equity," I would like to point out that looking for a job in research science is nothing like looking for a job in software engineering. Scientists are seldom in a position to make demands. The market simply does not value science. It places plenty of value on the products which science is the rate-limiting step in creating, but because basic science is effectively a non-excludable good it seldom gets to capture any appreciable fraction of the value it creates. The patent system was a valiant attempt to fix this, but it hasn't lived up to anybody's hopes.

"That sucks. I'm glad I'm not a scientist!"

Just hope that in 30 years when you get diagnosed with cancer your cure won't be in the set {things that would have been discovered if medical research had gotten >2% of health care expenditures} \ {things that were discovered anyway}. This is a problem that affects us all.

java-man• 12 years ago

exactly!

maratd3• 12 years ago

The market simply does not value science.

Not true. It values science.

It just doesn't value most scientists. If you produce high quality science on a consistent, constant basis ... trust me, you'll get the big $$$.

But if you get lucky because you stumbled on something great, that's not science. That's winning the lottery. And you didn't win the lottery, your employer did. Your employer knows it had nothing to do with you and had everything to do with luck.

If Lipitor guy had a convincing argument that he could have another $135b breakthrough, that he could be consistent, do you really think everybody would tell him to screw off? I bet they would easily lay half that amount at his feet.

akjetma• 12 years ago

I don't think many people on HN would say "He deserves exactly what he got because he didn't negotiate for equity" or "That sucks. I'm glad I'm not a scientist!"

edit: I think I may have just been proven wrong, nevermind...

sosuke• 12 years ago

It may seem small, but for some reason it feels like a big win.

Hytosys• 12 years ago

$8.1M will buy you everything you need for the rest of your life. I'm glad that this was the outcome, and I hope that he's now leading a happy life!

jonah3• 12 years ago

He seems to be doing quite well.

http://ssleec.ucsb.edu/nakamura

bzang• 12 years ago

He did also just pick up a Nobel prize today, so that ain't half bad...

jonah3• 12 years ago

And the Millennium Technology Prize in 2006. Its award is 1 million euros.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Technology_Prize

LED Inventor and Employer Settle for $8.1M (2005)

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