Employer-employee relationships are very different from PI-institution relationships. PIs operate like little businesses within an institution. They write the

Employer-employee relationships are very different from PI-institution relationships. PIs operate like little businesses within an institution. They write their own grants for their own funding. Sometimes the institution coughs up some corn, but usually it goes the other way. The institution extracts overheads from grant funds to pay for infrastructure. When it comes to matters of research, it's rare in the American system that PIs take orders from the institution.