Yep. The academic job market is mind bogglingly brutal, meaning that academic departments have no reason to go out on any limbs. As a result hiring and tenure

Yep. The academic job market is mind bogglingly brutal, meaning that academic departments have no reason to go out on any limbs. As a result hiring and tenure processes are extremely conservative and, as the author points out, normative. I completely sympathize with the author; the promise of such shenanigans in the academic career path were part of my motivation for passing a job offer and instead take a software engineering job.