Comment by vonneumannstan
4 days ago
>I think a lot about how Terrence Tao and the usual 30 (already well-funded) math guys will receive this cash while us early-career math students are left holding the bag.
Never understood this sentiment. Theses top researchers could do almost anything else with their skills outside Academia and make far far more money. You don't get rich off grants... They could all presumably walk into Anthropic or OpenAI for near $1M a year in TC.
If you yourself are as cracked as you think you could also do the same...
Getting your foot in the door is always the first step. Sure, you can be as cracked as you want. You can be mediocre as well. None of that matters if you don't have a foundation to start from.
If you're supposedly in the neighborhood of where this money could have trickled down to then there are likely alumni from your University at Anthropic, GDM, Meta, OpenAI, etc who could at least get you a referral for an internship. This is totally standard industry practice. Passing the interviews is up to you.