I have not heard of similar comp levels in the aging/cancer/rocket space. My suspicion is that this is the result of cultural differences where management takes a much bigger piece of the pie. I would be happy to change fields once this is fixed.
1. Not all startups are equal, but quite a few will create some lasting value.
2. Unsure if most of this career alternatives will ever give that sort of gains. The question is where the gains come from? Inefficiencies in trading strategies of your retirement fund? Maybe those inefficiencies are always present if humans type orders? Maybe we should design stock market with human first approach, not HFT exploitable?
But is the reduction of HFT qua HFT really the goal? Making a market low-frequency will by definition reduce/eliminate HFT as a strategy but you will still have a lot of trading activity done by well capitalized companies using lots of expensive equipment. They will just use different strategies.
1. Putting "high growth tech companies" (we know you mean startups) in the "important social problem" bucket, especially in the same group as aging, cancer, space exploration, is tenuous at best.
2. Until any of the above pay half a million a year plus huge bonus potential, I seriously doubt anyone going into HFT would give them more than a passing glance.