In recent times, more researchers have been leaving academia for technology companies. This trend is encouraged by these technology companies, which thrive by baiting the most talented and promising young stars of academia with bigger salaries than what universities can offer.
One such example is Peter Coles, ex-economist at Harvard Business School. At Harvard, he enjoyed world-renowned prestige, access to luminaries of his field, and support for his work, which has contributed to influential decisions in national policy. Yet, in 2013, Coles moved to California's Bay Area. He now works at Airbnb, an online lodging market-place. Coles is one example of an economist that was successfully baited with "the promise of big sets of data and big salaries," according to one New York Times article on the flight from academia.
Academic economists typically earn between $125,000 to $150,000 a year. But ex-academics hired by tech companies will start with $200,000 a year -- excluding bonuses and stock grants. Salaries in the tech world are far more flexible and upwardly mobile. Seniority and management positions bring additional raises.
Now, there are more inroads for economists in Silicon Valley than ever before. The big-bucks tech companies are leading on this trend, including Amazon
Another economist, Randall Lewis, measures advertising effectiveness and the relationship between correlation and causation for purchases made with advertisements present. The study of digital advertisements is one new research dimension, as it generates trackable data that experts use to study it. These new fields of research are testaments to the novelty of the new digital frontier.
Amazon is currently the most aggressive recruiter of academic economists. As of September 2016, there are a total of 34 jobs sites to attract economists who want to work at Amazon. In response, academia and academics are adapting its systems around this new source of job prospects and second-phase career opportunities.
For students of economics, knowledge of computer science is increasingly emphasized. Economics-computer science double majors are increasingly common--as well as new courses aimed at combining useful elements from both fields. These courses are taught at the undergraduate level, and are specifically pitched at students who wish to do economics for tech companies. Joint degree programs are also in the works.
The study and design of digital markets is becoming increasingly more prominent in undergraduate curriculums nationwide. The developing hybridized field of computer science/economics aims to preserve the key elements of each discipline. For economics, this is "efficiency, prices, and incentives," according to the same New York Times article. For computer science, this is "algorithms and complexity." Both sets of concerns are necessary for navigating digital markets.
In particular, experts in artificial intelligence are highly sought after today. Technology companies have many uses for their skills, including developing spam-filtration and online advertisement targeting. Once obscure niche conferences in artificial intelligence are now popular recruiting grounds for technology firms.
Technology firms offer academics the tremendous incentive of being able to see their ideas go into practice faster, with greater emphasis on applicability. Academics who join tech firms are also exempt from the worry of finding research grants.
On the other side, universities will suffer potential drawbacks, as detailed in one article in The Economist. As they are unable to offer competitive salaries, the prospect of a brain drain is a major threat. If a brain drain occurs, there will be no one remaining to cultivate and educate the next generation in their fields. The prospect of having extreme expertise clustered around several prestigious firms (ie. a Google intellectual monopoly) is also a danger. To combat this, open-sourcing is on the rise. One such initiative is Elon Musks's not-for-profit initiative, OpenAI, a database which promises to make its research public.
Like their older researcher counterparts, students are motivated to choose their fields of study by the promise of larger future salaries working in industry. These students can look forward to entering a thriving, lucrative field. They are buoyed by the notion that Silicon Valley experiences no shortage of money, combined with a constant demand for new talent.
One early example of how this phenomenon has manifested in the student end is the Thiel Fellowship, founded in 2012 by Peter Thiel. This fellowship is also an experiment in higher education, because it encourages undergraduate students with precocious specializations and clearly defined project ideas to drop out of college, to pursue their projects full-time for two years. In exchange, they will receive mentorship and $100,000 from the Thiel foundation--and few additional contingencies, according to a New York Times article profiling the fellowship.
Critics of the Thiel Fellowship claim that the fellowship encourages an overly idealized view of dropping out of college. Proponents of Thiel's initiative rarely admit that this choice may not be the correct path for every early bloomer, as opting out of structure comes with substantial social and psychological risk that not everybody is prepared to function without. These critics say that, for some fellowship winners, the benefits incurred by the Thiel are satisfactory in the short-term, but in the long term, the winners could be doing more aggregate good and radical change by (ironically) pursuing a more traditional and predictable path. These critics point to past Thiel fellows who have abandoned their research interests entirely, to sell their skills to industry or consulting.
SOURCES:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/technology/goodbye-ivory-tower-hello-silicon-valley-candy-store.html?ref=business&mtrref=www.nytimes.com&mtrref=www.nytimes.com
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21695908-silicon-valley-fights-talent-universities-struggle-hold-their
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/business/the-thiel-fellows-forgoing-college-to-pursue-dreams.html
