"Good morning and welcome to the first LRM Outreach Lynch...I mean Lunch, of course! My name is Chris, and I'll start by apologizing that my two co-organizers could not be here today. Well, frankly they could have been here but had better things to do.
"I want to talk about the theme for this gathering: The Power of Ideas. This goes back to to the reason I think all of us started our Ph.D programs: Every one of us entered this profession because we thought we could change the world through our ideas. Your ideas. Your ideas matter. Your ideas matter to us.
"Ideas ignite passion. But that passion needs to be tempered by reality. And this is a truth we all must face: that the best ideas do not always win. Some of us place at highly-visible, world-class universities whilst others end up in BFE.
"You may have found a non-dubious approach to recover the distribution of individual utility parameters from aggregate data based on arbitrary distributional and functional form assumptions. But can that really compete with 16 and Pregnant? And do you think Justin or Joshua is tweeting about papers not in the top 5, the occasional senior thesis excepted?
"That's where we (APW, Inc.) come in. Let's face it: we have connections to top journal editors. We have low teaching loads and huge research budgets to hire armies of RAs who give us plausible deniability for erroneous yet pleasing results. Can you really compete?
"The offer is simple: sign this one-way NDA, and we will run with your ideas. In some (*) cases we may elect to coauthor. Many times we will cite your similar ("later") paper, or at the very least add a non-cited footnote upon public request. And--this is crucial--you are free to pursue the same idea!
"I'll take questions in a minute, but in closing I want to highlight our benevolence in bringing this opportunity to you. By offering you the chance for your ideas to see the light of day instead of toiling in obscurity, we are a ray of hope in a dark night.
"Now, I know some of you are thinking 'why do I need these guys? I can be the next John List.' Well, to paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen: 'I know John List. I hobnob with John List. And you loosers are no John List!'
"Any questions?
* The word "some" is not to be interpreted as a positive number but rather a non-negative one.