My experience in industry is primarily IEEE 802.3 meetings, which is industry but all academic types. I currently work in academia. I can say that the product

My experience in industry is primarily IEEE 802.3 meetings, which is industry but all academic types. I currently work in academia. I can say that the productivity focused nature of high end industry is focused, but suffers from inefficiencies in administrative and ego-shaped overheads. In the sexy research areas you don’t have to waste time on all of the things related to scaling up that industry does. To get back to the topic at hand: industry can have rooms with stimulating conversations. Academia can have rooms devoid of interesting conversations. I’d put my money on the organization that focuses on intellectual discovery to be the one that garners more interesting discussions on average than the organization that is driven by profit.* * Academia is still certainly sick with money and corruption problems at all levels right now.