This is an intellectually and morally bankrupt sentiment that is all the more worth calling out because it is both impractical and nonsensical.

1. This sentiment is nonsensical. Scientific funding often funds more than just salaries, and when it does fund salaries, those salaries are almost always modest. Furthermore, many of the salaries it funds are for non-scientists: technicians, software engineers, etc. The tired trope that scientific funding is primarily funnelled to wide-eyed loners who produce nothing but "useless" abstract ideas is demonstrably inaccurate. And to the extent that this caricature is accurate, Simons himself is a counter-point to the argument that this is a bad model.

2. This sentiment is impractical. Basic science is important to society as a whole and there's almost always no way to become ultra-rich doing basic science(++). All of society benefits when a good lot of our best and brightest go into science (rather than e.g. consulting or finance). And the best way to ensure that great minds go into science is to ensure science remains funded so that it is possible to work on truly important problems.

3. This sentiment is intellectually bankrupt. A great mind following its dreams without prioritizing financial reward is responsible for most of the major scientific developments that make it possible for you to bash their would-be descendents from behind a keyboard.

4. This sentiment is morally bankrupt. Punishing passionate people who give up highly lucrative careers to do something that is good for humanity is nothing short of vindictive -- I hate my work day so everyone else has to as well!

(edit: As an aside, you really think CEOs don't like the rush from having lots of power and making important decisions? They may work long hours, but I guarantee most of them fucking love their jobs. I also bet there's a pretty strong correlation between top-of-clas software engineers who command high salaries for their expertise, and software engineers who love their job.)

(edit2: Furthermore, science has lots of drudgery and hard, frustrating work to it; it's not all sitting in an office and drinking coffee. The idea that scientists unequivocally work on fun problems all day and never bash their heads against the wall to solve problems that they're more extrinsically than intrinsically motivated to work on is also pretty wrong.)

(++) Simons explicitly answers the question in his interview: No. Nothing we do at Renaissance -- no matter how impressive from a finance perspective -- is useful to science. It's just useful for making a handful of people rich.