I left academia after 8 years (4 PhD, 4 Postdoc) to go into a startup (non US). For me, I was disillusioned with what being in academia meant: Publish or Perish

I left academia after 8 years (4 PhD, 4 Postdoc) to go into a startup (non US). For me, I was disillusioned with what being in academia meant: Publish or Perish meant publishing whatever crap mid-work you had for the sake of putting something out. At the time I was also a blind-reviewer in a couple of publications, and the amount of trash papers that arrived due to the same issue was astounding (and no, I didn't get paid to do that). I would love to do research and science, but I just hate the current status of that "industry". And this is considering that I traded a "comfortable" life in Germany, with all the great social safeties in there (I didn't have a problem with the language) for a Mexican based startup with very high risk. And the pay was even not that different. After 10 years of my decision, I can say I took the best path, given that it took me to work in other startups that have been doing amazingly well and for which I've got some good amount of stocks.