I left in the middle of a PhD for mostly this reason. I was introduced to politics of the department very quickly because I learned my advisor was not popular

I left in the middle of a PhD for mostly this reason. I was introduced to politics of the department very quickly because I learned my advisor was not popular with most of the rest of the faculty. Only two of them would collaborate with her. She had a big fight with one of the more established researchers over patent rights a few years back. I had met her as an undergraduate five years prior to when I became her grad student. She was pleasant, albeit a little pushy, but nothing offputting. She had changed in the interim. She would yell at me (and her other students) in her office for the slightest mistakes. During a meeting with other researchers and my colleagues she accused me of not completing my work. It took all my strength not to tell her to fuck off and walk out. Mind you, this woman gave me a rare A+ in her course just a few years before because I did stellar work. She's certainly infected by the anxiety of academia and she passes it on to her students and subordinates. When I saw how being a university researcher transformed her I decided to give up my chosen route. It didn't seem worth it to me if there was a significant risk of becoming a bitter asshole. I became a software engineer. So I probably make double what she does, I have a fraction of the anxiety and I'm not a bitter asshole.