There's no shortage of people willing to be professors. It isn't clear that the incumbents are dramatically better than those who narrowly miss the cut. It mi

There's no shortage of people willing to be professors. It isn't clear that the incumbents are dramatically better than those who narrowly miss the cut. It might be that even better people are drawn to the profession (even in STEM) if there was an easier exchange between academia and industry. The challenge is actually that 'moonshot' or fairly theoretical stuff with long-term payoffs may be hard to evaluate.