This makes sense if you are working on a problem in relative isolation, that's relatively well known, and who's research has low optionality to other work. How

This makes sense if you are working on a problem in relative isolation, that's relatively well known, and who's research has low optionality to other work. However, there are many problems that are either utterly unknown, impractical to work on outside of a major collaboration, or option well into multiple papers. It would seem that in academia, focusing on the latter will yield better long term career results. If you're a PhD student in a large collaboration, then you can't get scooped. If you are working on a problem no one knows/cares about, then getting scooped is a low risk, if you're working in an area where scooping is common - but you have good equipment/infrastructure - then you can re-use the work for something else. In hindsight, almost all of my professors work was either part of a collaboration or focused on "high option" research. The few theoreticians and others working on areas which could be scooped seemed to either pick up more teaching/administrative work - or focus on "conservative" research.