Sure. I worked in non-relativistic Many Body QM which is a mature field (although some outstanding problems remain). I had funding etc. I was looking into two

Sure. I worked in non-relativistic Many Body QM which is a mature field (although some outstanding problems remain). I had funding etc. I was looking into two sorts of things, one which was an applicable replacement for some old technology, and a pure theory project focused on some insoluble fundamental mystery. The applicable project was popular, but at best I could put in extra hours to compete with how rapidly people in the top 5 would copy my ideas and successfully receive the credit for it. The passion project remained permanently only interesting to me, and was too difficult for any students I could acquire. I quit when I realized that I wouldn't be able to actually make scientific progress on the second vein of research because of the other demands on my life. To 'Work' as faculty is to write grants, play politics (and necessarily do less science) or ignore the well being of yourself and your students, because the field is worse than indifferent to progress and new ideas. Progress is intrinsically threatening to old faculty, who control the resources the field by sitting on NSF panels. One can choose to ignore what success is, but if so taking students is (in my opinion) unethical. Even hidden away alone behind your desk hoping no one knocks, you will sit on so many committees etc. that you would be lucky to have 2 hours a day for science. I had friends who were doing incredible science with a few students, focusing on intellectual virtue, who then were denied tenure for being unliked by modern university's customers (undergraduates). Because no one in finance exchanges information, I am genuinely free to focus on ideas. The ideas are the same as quantum mechanics, as finance is also a problem of many-dimensional probabilities. Hagen Kleinert wrote a great book about it. It would be trivial to fix American academia, by either eliminating tenure, forcing retirements from grants, or simply testing that faculty could do a single project a year without a student. Of course the national academy would sooner die than allow any one of these things to pass. They prefer to travel on grants and pretend they are wealthy.