That bit about researchers being the CEOs of their own little companies really resonated with me. I'm myself not a PhD, but I worked at IBM Research for a while

That bit about researchers being the CEOs of their own little companies really resonated with me. I'm myself not a PhD, but I worked at IBM Research for a while in a business development role, and I amazed at how incredibly good the researchers in the lab were at sales (when they took the time off from their research to find a customer for their idea). I came to the conclusion that it was their training as PhDs and their need to constantly be pitching for grants. The process forces you to sell your ideas, even when there is no concrete 'product' yet. And that is not so different from how a startup CEO works. Not surprisingly, many of them have gone on to start their own companies very successfully, desipite never having managed anything bigger their lab printer before.