It's not about status and prestige, it's about scientific freedom and possibilities. Of course, someone who was on tenure-track or had an otherwise promising ca

It's not about status and prestige, it's about scientific freedom and possibilities. Of course, someone who was on tenure-track or had an otherwise promising career before they left will not want to get back as a staff member, and, by the way, these people also cannot get hired as such. Sometimes there are even explicit restrictions such as "maximum of X years since Ph.D." or maximum age for lower-level positions. I don't think this essentially different in business, it is not uncommon not to get hired when you're overqualified or considered too old for the job. The reasonableness of such restrictions can be discussed but they also exist in academia in most countries. In my country, for instance, none of the national funding schemes accept "having been in business" as an excuse in the CV (only medical reasons and pregnancy), so you're expected to be fully comparable to anyone who has worked the same number of years since the Ph.D. in academia. It sounds ridiculous but that's the rule. So you will compete with someone who has 40 publications as someone with 20 publications, for instance.