I did the whole PhD gig, few years as a post-doc and then obtained a tenured position only to quit it and go to industry. While I don't regret all of it, I wish

I did the whole PhD gig, few years as a post-doc and then obtained a tenured position only to quit it and go to industry. While I don't regret all of it, I wish I had quit for industry sooner. Industry is far, far nicer than academia. The amount of time one puts in for massive amounts of bullshit meetings and form filling and constant justification of how what you are doing is beneficial for society is insane. What I realized was that, in many ways, academia is not that different from the glamour world. Young, naive people see superstars at the top, receiving adulation and sex, and see no reason why they can't be one of them. The superstars are relatively accessible and you meet them and they tell you all you need is talent, hard work, and all of this could be yours too. Grad school, at least in fields like Physics, Math, etc is cheap as long as you don't have family or other dependents. It is an artificial environment with its own rules, and you get sucked in hard. It actively encourages you to not care for yourself or anyone else around you and just focus on research (read, what gets your advisor publications and awards). Over the span of my PhD I saw two suicides, almost every person who was married divorced, and practically everyone was on anti-depressants. This doesn't end after getting your PhD. Since academic jobs could be anywhere and because the typical post doc grants come for 2-4 years, you can't really settle down and start a family. There is crippling uncertainty about everything. While your peers at this time have had kids, you are still wondering _whether_ your academic career will happen. The senior folks who got their PhDs in the golden period in 70s and 80s are at best oblivious to how things are now, or actively feed you lies because you continuing to work in this system for as long as possible is in their best interests. When I walked away from the tenured position after going through all that, everyone was like who does that. But, personally, it was a huge relief to me. My first salary in the corporate world was 4x what I was offered in academia (am a physicist, transitioned to AI/ML). Ironically, I have more time to read research papers and actually think about research now.