To be honest, the freedom to fail alone would make a huge difference. On one hand there's a lot of freedom for intellectual growth in academia - in the last few

To be honest, the freedom to fail alone would make a huge difference. On one hand there's a lot of freedom for intellectual growth in academia - in the last few months I've used deep learning, assembled hardware under a microscope, performed neurosurgery and genetic engineering (this is somewhat standard for my field). On the other hand, I make less than I did as a new cable guy, won't make more for 10 years, and every postdoc and phd student in my lab works 7 days / week standard. And if I fail, I will probably be done career-wise. LOTS of talented people leave because they see startups as the 'safer' bet - at least if your startup fails you're not doomed.