Presumably thinking about things that never resulted in papers because they didn't work out, or else working on those 10. Working for 4 years on a paper isn't out of the question if it's totally original work and one is being super careful. Not that doing that is rewarded these days, which I assume was exactly his point.
Even for those of us just learning, far more "productivity" is required. If I wrote a paper every 4 years, my PhD program would be a 10-14 year program.
honestly, what is "a paper"? a publication is an atrifact of an idea. says nothing about the quality of that idea. today's system is just geared toward printing out a lot of garbage. one way to understand this is that all subjects have similarly increased publications over the years. does that mean each subject is progressing as a function of the subject's publications? of course not. they are being told to "jump" for money, so those in academy respond: "how high"? Acdemics are truly just rats in a maze at this stage of the game. They are guaranteed a salary by tenure, but not "funding" to actually do their work. Tenure offers no job security, in the broader sense, of having your costs covered.
