I strongly doubt that is true, actually. I'm a few years out from my PhD. The classmates who stayed in academia are neither much smarter nor harder working tha

I strongly doubt that is true, actually. I'm a few years out from my PhD. The classmates who stayed in academia are neither much smarter nor harder working than those who have left. It does select for certain personality traits, like risk tolerance and willingness to self-promote, but I'm not sure that's really what we want.