Yeah. Granted, I think a society does value citizens who care about truth, but I don't think care for truth is incentivized in overtly material ways, such as by giving out money. — Leontiskos

I actually think that those whose driver is truth aren't incentivized by money anyway, or at least not to the point where that will keep them interested. Managers love those who work for the good of the world because their fulfillment comes from within and they're less interested in keeping score in terms of salaries, bonuses, job titles, corner offices, or whatever. The danger these people pose is that they end up with a disproportionate amount of responsibility and they'll be intolerant of a work environment that lacks respect or otherwise violates some value of theirs, which means they'll be needed but they'll have no loyalty to something perceived lacking virtue and there will be no way to keep them once those values no longer exist at the company.

A company built around those folks will take a massive hit when new management arrives and they'll start filing out the door.

Right, and yet I think it is key to understand that societal values and managerial interests are somewhat different. I want to say that such people are valued by society, and although they pose a liability to a manager that a money-motivated person does not pose, nevertheless I don't think they pose that liability to society.

Well, except when they do pose that liability to society. But I want to say that someone who is interested in truth per se is not the same as someone who is interested in, "working for the good of the world." I think a healthy society does value people who are interested in truth and are motivated to pursue it in itself. Someone who is interested in goodness or love is more complicated insofar as the society is concerned. That's why someone like Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) wrote his encyclical, "Caritas in Veritate," which points up the way that truth should always be normative in any endeavor that seeks good/betterment/improvement.

Of course, professors are given tenure because their work upholds the goals of the institution: a professor will never be given tenure if they play a Socratic role of constant truth seeking. All institutions are fairly political in nature. — ProtagoranSocratist

That's true, but the tenured professor is less beholden to the institution than a non-tenured professor. The whole concept of tenure is in part meant to give a professor academic freedom without fear of being fired.

Exactly: universities are famous for only letting you rock the boat in very specific ways, without any danger of actually letting radical proffesors make any changes to the rigid and bureaucratic structures of the university itself.