Maybe success in life and science isn't about becoming a billionaire?
Even so - if this works out, their prizes and paid speaking gigs will cover a very comfortable life if that's what they want. I'm not sure why they should be entitled to more than that.
Hey Jacques, It's been fun watching your comments on this, you're very knowledgable. :) I had a question, I see some "we made a totally perfect/pure LK-99 it didn't work" - is pure/perfect what they should be going for, to me perfect/pure != correct, however I knew literally nothing about this subject till this week so I have no idea what I'm talking about. Thank you.
I really couldn't tell you what they should be doing, but I'd love for the original samples to be tested by another lab. That seems to me the easiest way to verify the original claims and reduces the uncertainty introduced by the lack of good process documentation and the chance that even the original researches do not quite know how they did what they did, assuming it is all true. The fact that that hasn't happened yet is the biggest source of my continued skepticism, at the same time my optimism is powered by the partial results of the other labs. It's a very strange combination of data, not unlike other things in the past that did not pan out but only time will tell which way it will all resolve.
I think a Nobel is pretty much guaranteed at this point.
They'll make a ton of money either ways. Maybe not billionaire level, but they'll be venerated wherever they go, will be granted countless prizes, will sit on the boards of important companies, and have their pick of academic jobs - all of it entirely deserved, of course.
Even so - if this works out, their prizes and paid speaking gigs will cover a very comfortable life if that's what they want. I'm not sure why they should be entitled to more than that.