He mentions Europe without more nuance for the same reason he mentions China without more nuance: he’s talking big picture.

To some people, their careers are interesting in and of itself, beyond money.

This applies to many professions: scientists, CEOs, writers, painters.

Scientific progress is largely driven by the “Steve Jobs” of sciences.

Only a tiny fraction of papers remain relevant. So that means the quality of the average paper doesn’t matter as much as the quality of the best paper.

There is a lot of work in research that fits the permanent worker better than the fresh 22 year old. But having that fresh talent is really beneficial to science.

But having a strong training pipeline for the globe is a huge plus for US prestige, and the top people are still offered jobs as faculty or industry within the country, so it still a net gain for USA. But it’s brutally competitive for the individual scientists

I bet important people don’t even have time to sit and watch a full movie.

"If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is."

Large pharma makes strategic bets on several drugs, some initiated in house, others acquired, but they all just go through further optimization and testing before it is approved.

Huge RnD is required even if drug is “simply acquired”

Also nobody fits neural networks and use variation inference using any priors that aren’t some standard form that makes algorithm easy