It's quite a bummer that he identified two things I identified that caused me to decide to leave academia, age and pedigree. I was working in a field that wasn

It's quite a bummer that he identified two things I identified that caused me to decide to leave academia, age and pedigree. I was working in a field that wasn't super hot or trendy, but for which there was a lot of low hanging fruit that a ... lesser physicist could actually work on to move the needle. It was gratifying, but the "system" for granting PhDs, and granting funding isn't designed for "B" players, and it's a bummer. My age and experience in other fields helped me contribute to the rest of my team's goals in ways that I think wouldn't have otherwise happened if someone from a more traditional path had been on the team instead. Oh well :)