I don't regret doing a PhD, but there are so many downsides. It took me away from hacking, and I'm only just feeling like I'm getting back to loving it again. T

I don't regret doing a PhD, but there are so many downsides. It took me away from hacking, and I'm only just feeling like I'm getting back to loving it again. There's a sort (possibly necessary) attitude in research where you judge at everything with a pretty high level of abstraction - but so much of good in something is in the detail. It's hard to do significant implementation and detail work and write a paper on it. So your focus, and the standards by which you judge other peoples work and they judge yours, ends up being pretty artificial. The other big problem in academia is working with the people you want to work with. You can't generally band together with your friends and do a PhD together. There will probably be some great people in the lab but you usually aren't working too closely. It can be a good way to get paid (a pittance) for doing interesting work. I don't think it helps in the startup world - much. Certainly not when you consider that working for a pittance for 4 years could allow you to startup and fail at a number of ventures of your own.