Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

They have; it's the deregulation of industry and the disempowering of anti-trust from Reagan onwards. Unfortunately it's a hard sell to undo these. But some progress is being made on antitrust.

The original claim was that PhD in physics destroys your life more then drugs. Which is not a thing even if we talk about marihuanna rather then heroin.

> The conventional wisdom is you got a science PhD because you want to be an outgoing, driven, competitive leader.

I have never seen such wisdom. In my neck of woods, PhD is about being hugely into some aspect of science, seeing value in it and being willing to work a lot on it even in bad conditions. The only that tracks is being competitive.

But, you can be introverted, you wont lead anything and no one expects you to.

I did my Ph. D. between 1998 and 2003. I did not regret doing that but after one year as a post doc I left the academic world for one simple reason:

I realized the career paths were limited to two options I did not like: option 1) try to shoot for a tenure position somewhere via a long series of post doc positions. Expect to be mostly busy managing postdocs and researchers and lobbying for funding by the time you get there. Tenured professors delegate all the fun bits (i.e. research). 2) Become a lecturer. That's what happens to all the post docs that don't make it all the way.

It sounds harsh and it's unfair to the great teachers I had in university. But that roughly is the pecking order at many universities. If you're not cut out for securing lots of funding, you get to do the chore of teaching. Those are the two main things universities need to get done. The pesky business of actually doing the research is something that gets delegated to young phd students and post docs. Tenure positions are for those with a proven track record of securing funding. Typically via getting others to do great research.

That's the reason I left. Because I liked the research part, didn't mind the teaching part but absolutely hated the dreary university politics and the endless stupid infighting for power, funding, etc.

So I moved into industry, worked at an industrial research center for a bit (Nokia Research) and then found my way into startups. Building startups is a lot like doing research. You are solving fascinating problems that haven't been solved before. It requires the same sort of skills, you are running experiments, theorizing solutions, learning about new problems to solve, etc. You don't get to write a lot of papers and articles. Which isn't something I miss that much. While doing my Ph. D. the pressure to publish was so high it barely left any time for the actual research. With a startup it's the other way around.

I defended my PhD this year and I think a lot of people in my department expected me to stay in academia. When they asked why I didn't want to go be a professor I've always responded "I want to do research." It seems everyone immediately understood usually responded a somber nod.

I feel the contract of academia has been broken. I'll give up high pay and gladly teach students if I am given the freedom to explore and define my own research path. But that is not the job of a professor. They spend all their days writing grants, doing service, mentoring grad students in how to write works that get the most citations, and build their connections. Little time is usually left for students and rarely is there time for research on their own. Why would I want to do all that when I can make 3x as much in industry, work fewer hours, and have access to better tools to do my own research? While industry will also not give me much freedom there's no doubt that I will actually have time to do research if I find the energy.

We fucked up. We let the bureaucrats take over. They care about metrics but not for what the metrics measure. Unfortunately this isn't unique to academia. But we lost sight of the whole purpose of academia. Academia was always supposed to be different. Not about profits. Research is high risk, but results in massive rewards. It research creates the foundation for trillion dollar industries. Sometimes it takes decades to see that reward, but the research is cheap.