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I've spent 15 years in academia and 10 in industry. Academia isn't worse on a per capita basis. Leaders' flaws are rawer, mainly because hardly anyone gets lead

I've spent 15 years in academia and 10 in industry. Academia isn't worse on a per capita basis. Leaders' flaws are rawer, mainly because hardly anyone gets leadership training. And they often have more severe consequences, especially for grad students who are put in a subordinate, dependent position for an extended period of time. But IME you're at least equally likely to find psychopaths at the top of businesses.

tristor 2y ago
You’re right. Plenty of research has shown C-suite execs tend to have psychopathic tendencies. The thing about academia, though, is that there is no escape. Not only is this behavior everywhere in the academy, economics dictates with very few exceptions you are stuck in the system and have to become part of it just to subsist and participate in research. Meanwhile in the business world it’s relatively a simple matter to quit and work elsewhere when you end up with a psycho boss, and if you’re clever it is relatively simple to be compensated in a way that makes it possible to split away and start your own business or otherwise attain a significant level of control over your own livelihood and career goals. As the saying goes, “the only way to win is not to play” when it comes to academia. Unfortunately that just further concentrates the worst characteristics. As someone who escaped academia it isn’t lost on me that academics almost universally love communism, a system that rigidly enforces equality such that it’s impossible to excel and break away from the system. One of the wonderful things about business is you can earn enough to eventually step away.
- matthewdgreen 2y ago
  Academia is much less centralized. My lab is basically unconstrained as long as I bring in enough funding, and although I have a department chair he has limited power to make me do things. Similarly I have almost no power over my fellow faculty members, aside from bugging them to do things. A bad PI can make their students’ and post-docs’ lives miserable, and can irritate their colleagues. But they have nothing near the power that a C-suite executive (or hell a VP) in a corporation does, simply because they don’t have the same number of people under them. And no, you don’t see maniacal behavior everywhere. You hear a lot about the 5% who behave terribly because they draw a lot of complaints and make up approximately 100% of the reports you see on sites like RetractionWatch.

tristor 2y ago

You’re right. Plenty of research has shown C-suite execs tend to have psychopathic tendencies. The thing about academia, though, is that there is no escape. Not only is this behavior everywhere in the academy, economics dictates with very few exceptions you are stuck in the system and have to become part of it just to subsist and participate in research. Meanwhile in the business world it’s relatively a simple matter to quit and work elsewhere when you end up with a psycho boss, and if you’re clever it is relatively simple to be compensated in a way that makes it possible to split away and start your own business or otherwise attain a significant level of control over your own livelihood and career goals. As the saying goes, “the only way to win is not to play” when it comes to academia. Unfortunately that just further concentrates the worst characteristics. As someone who escaped academia it isn’t lost on me that academics almost universally love communism, a system that rigidly enforces equality such that it’s impossible to excel and break away from the system. One of the wonderful things about business is you can earn enough to eventually step away.

matthewdgreen 2y ago
Academia is much less centralized. My lab is basically unconstrained as long as I bring in enough funding, and although I have a department chair he has limited power to make me do things. Similarly I have almost no power over my fellow faculty members, aside from bugging them to do things. A bad PI can make their students’ and post-docs’ lives miserable, and can irritate their colleagues. But they have nothing near the power that a C-suite executive (or hell a VP) in a corporation does, simply because they don’t have the same number of people under them. And no, you don’t see maniacal behavior everywhere. You hear a lot about the 5% who behave terribly because they draw a lot of complaints and make up approximately 100% of the reports you see on sites like RetractionWatch.