"How can you credibly offer someone 40-50k dollars a year, with no job security, tied to some grants that might or might not be renewed and expect them to turn down offers from companies looking for data scientists?"
The same way that restaurant owners ask their servers to work for sub-minimum wage and expect them to bring that up to minimum wage via "tips"(Law mandates they bump that up to minimum wage of 7+ if tips don't cover it, but that's separate). Not entirely the same, but it's an alternate form of payment for services rendered. If you ask me, I think it's perfectly reasonable as long as there are no laws meddling and causing an increase of such "odd" remuneration schemes.
The same way that restaurant owners ask their servers to work for sub-minimum wage and expect them to bring that up to minimum wage via "tips"(Law mandates they bump that up to minimum wage of 7+ if tips don't cover it, but that's separate). Not entirely the same, but it's an alternate form of payment for services rendered. If you ask me, I think it's perfectly reasonable as long as there are no laws meddling and causing an increase of such "odd" remuneration schemes.