I can assure you that many others are toiling away in areas that could not plausibly lead to a TED talk.  It&#x27;s not all show-and-tell prestidigitation, but some areas are heavier in that regard than others -- like machine learning, for instance.<p>Your response is rational, however, in its critique of many fields and forums.  I&#x27;d like you not, however, to denigrate the incredible sacrifices being made by researchers in all fields of study.  Of course, the snake-oil rules the day at the moment, but those are just the most vocal and observable of workers, and they cast the rest in an unfortunate and undeserved light.  The startup world, in many ways, shares a large responsibility for this perniciousness, as institutions all vie with press releases for investment and donation money more now than ever before with the goal of reaping short-term profits in the marketplace.