As faculty he was, 1. Interacting with people who are interested in commercial viability of his research ideas 2. Interacting with students, interested in pur

As faculty he was, 1. Interacting with people who are interested in commercial viability of his research ideas 2. Interacting with students, interested in pursuing research careers and seeking guidance 3. Teaching. Forming concepts in otherwise uninformed minds 4. Coaching grad students who mostly will get inspiration from him to pursue reasearch careers 5. Preparing for talks. I think the author is under-estimating his contributions back in college. While he laments the student whose minds are un-prepared, he likes to debug/test the code which too in the same analogy is going thorough curative process. IMHO, if you compare the long term outputs (ROI), his work in college would far exceed that his does in private enterprise. Hope at some time, he could return back to campus re-invigorated.