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First of all, most of them don't. A lot of them consult or run businesses on the side. Second, it's the moneymen in administration who decided to run academia
by time_management 18y ago
First of all, most of them don't. A lot of them consult or run businesses on the side.
Second, it's the moneymen in administration who decided to run academia as a business, destroying it. The moneymen in charge of the universities have managed to jack tuition up 7% per year while cutting tenure-track professorships to such a degree that academia is no longer a viable career.
In general, I think professors object to 1950s-style hierarchical corporations, which are inhospitable environments for intelligent, creative people. And they object to the moneymen who are ruining their lives, and gutting academia, for the very-short-term benefit of the university profit margins (never mind that they're supposed to be non-profit). I don't think, by and large, they have any opposition to their students going to work at startups.
- rw 18y agoAdditionally, professor wages are among the most compressed. At my university, it is often cheaper to keep on professors who are old enough to retire, instead of hiring fresh talent.
- RK 18y agoI think there is also an incredible amount of competition for the junior faculty positions as well. One of my friends, who recently started a physics post-doc at Caltech is convinced that he will have to eventually go into the private sector to support his family, since there are so few faculty job possibilities and he can't be a post-doc forever. Luckily for him, he has computing and finance work experience from before he was in grad school.