From "You and Your Research" by Richard Hamming :<p><a href="http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/~anab/grad/hamming.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/~anab/grad/hamming.html</a><p><pre><code> I started asking, "What are the important problems
of your field?" And after a week or so, "What
important problems are you working on?" And after
some more time I came in one day and said, "If what
you are doing is not important, and if you don't
think it is going to lead to something important,
why are you at Bell Labs working on it?"
I wasn't welcomed after that.
</code></pre>
It doesn't necessarily apply, because that was research he was talking about, not "making money" or even"making a living."<p>Even so ...