A lot depends on your field. The academic fields that are moderately OK are the ones where there's a lively job market in industry competing for talent. I know

A lot depends on your field. The academic fields that are moderately OK are the ones where there's a lively job market in industry competing for talent. I know professors in CS and Medicine, who are quite happy. In other fields, there's no continuity of work beyond someone's job. A professor studying X can be replaced by another professor studying Y. There's no reason to keep you, if someone else can be more productive. And beyond the undergrad level, you depend on the cooperation and goodwill of people who can deliberately or inadvertently make your career vanish in a nanosecond. And then unless you're a superstar, you get start from scratch and hope for a second lucky break amidst a multiple of brilliant competitors. I got out right after grad school, so I don't even qualify as an academic refugee. My parents had both been industrial scientists, so that career path wasn't foreign to me, and I planned for it while working on my degree. When I got "screwed" in industry, I was quickly back on my feet. Turning things around, a company making X can hire someone away from a company making Y.