There is huge value in someone who knows how to think about hard problems and who also knows how to explain complex issues. Maybe that's one reason that Google Inc. is doing pretty well? Senior staffers at that company include Peter Weinberger (thoughtful mathematician; he's the "w" in the "awk" programming language) and Peter Norvig ("Director of Research"). Along with many fun and important items Norvig has written [1] a detailed, balanced, statistically sound, highly entertaining discussion of the 2008 US Presidential election. It's worth studying as an example of how to analyze and present a knotty subject. [2]

(By chance in years past I've been lucky enough to meet both Weinberger and Norvig over lunch during various technical symposia; cf. TufteThoughts (2000-12-18), PersonalProgrammingHistory (2002-04-02), NorvigLaws (2004-01-30), TimTowtdi (2004-02-07), ...) - ^z - 2008-11-04