The story of this guy is very inspiring. Unlike silicon valley engineers who tend to work hard in anticipation of big payouts, this guy has been working hard for years for his seemingly true passion of paleontology. We need more people like him in every field and especially in the silicon valley.
I think there are enough high quality open source or research projects to show that it's not only about the payouts in our field either...
One thing I find remarkable in this story: extensively working in the field (=literally/outside) -- opposed to following conventional "publish or perish" advice advancing his PhD in a more predictable manner...
