The Professor is clearly a physicist and inventor. Is it ever shown why he is running a small scale shipping company with only a handful of employees, instead of (for example) working in a government lab or university research center?
asked Nov 27 '16 at 21:22
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Even if the professor claims to be a physicist, not much of what we see him do in the show is actually physics. The technical term is "mad scientist" (or some would say "engineer") :-P– David ZDec 2 '16 at 7:04
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For the money
Fry: This is awesome! Are we gonna fly through space fighting monsters and teaching alien women to lurve?
Farnsworth: If by that you mean "transporting cargo" then yes. It's a little home business I started to fund my research.
You may wish to note that the Professor does maintain an office at Mars University, something of a sinecure given that no-one ever takes his classes.
Farnsworth: No, I need it shipped to my office at Mars University. It's a little experiment that may well win me the Nobel Prize.
Leela: In what field?
Farnsworth: I don't care, they all pay the same.
...
Fry: Oh, I don't know. Hey, Professor, what are you teaching this semester?
Farnsworth: Same thing I teach every semester: The Mathematics of Quantum Neutrino Fields. I made up the title so that no student would dare take it.
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4Also he'd never be able to work with anyone elses... (cf. A big ball of garbage)– k_gNov 28 '16 at 3:42
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4Curiously, a common plot device is that the company is going bankrupt or has to officially reclassify everyone as slaves instead of as employees, etc. Nov 28 '16 at 7:51
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31@Zibadawatimmy - Because the company is incompetently run. When Fry and the Professor disappear into the future, you can see the success Leela makes of it.– ValorumNov 28 '16 at 8:04
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20@Daft Again? As in you weren't already? Does not everybody live their life in an endless cycle watching the entire series over and over again?– DasonNov 28 '16 at 18:51
Professor Farnsworth may have started the company to fund his research (see Valorums answer), but he also sees it as cheap source of labor for his projects (similar to a research group in a lab):
Farnsworth: This is not a business. I always thought of it more as a cheap source of labor, like a family.
from Future Stock
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18And spare blood in Amy's case, albeit she's one of his students, not a member of the crew.– ValorumNov 28 '16 at 11:06