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There's also a nice comment by Sam Madden (professor at MIT, teaches classes on databases) below. It is a nice response to the person who essentially said "Mike

• ced 16y ago
  The comment in question: I'm in systems just down the road from Matt and Mike. I don't think I could have better said why academia appeals to me than Mike. Fundamentally, it's just very hard to find a job with more flexibility and freedom to do what you want than academia. I'm my own boss -- besides 3 hours of teaching a week (9 months out of the year, and 7 years out of 6!) my schedule is completely under my own control. I will add that I thing one thing neither Matt nor Mike pointed out is the opportunity that academia provides for commercializing your own technology. Most universities are extremely supportive of their faculty starting companies, and these days it is very common for faculty at universities in startup-friendly towns to spend a significant portion of their time at a startup. Matt complains about not being able to have impact or get your ideas accepted in a company. What better way to do it than to found the next VMWare or Akamai? Sure, you can go to Google, and make money for someone else and work on their vision for the future, or you can make your own way! Starting a company as a grad student is certainly possible as well (witness Google, Yahoo, etc) but having a tenured job to return to when your startup doesn't quite work out as planned sure is nice...