I don't think it's the opportunity to teach or lecture. The allure of academia comes from a kind of status, intellectual rather than social. So long as you're i

I don't think it's the opportunity to teach or lecture. The allure of academia comes from a kind of status, intellectual rather than social. So long as you're in the academic world, you're on the path of Newton, Gauss or whoever else floats your boat. Out in the world you're just making money. The academic world is carefully arranged as a linear sequence which you can progress along but which is halted if you leave. It's expected that very little you could do out in the commercial world could aid your academic career, without at least the involvement of a university. At best you can return to the same point along the trail but it may be much harder. The reinforcement begins with undergraduate students. The teaching and particularly grading, hence status, reward those suited for research. (This was particularly evident to me as a mechanical engineering student - the field is broad and empirical, but the examination of my course rewarded nothing but mathematical ability. And of course if you DO fly through the exams, interested professors will be gauging your interest in doing a PhD with them before long and it all clicks into place). As a postgraduate student you will sit underneath portraits of your idols and eat dinners with the academics you're encouraged to look up to, be fed anecdotes and inside knowledge. The lecturers and postdocs you meet will be judged by their research ability and are already self-selected for a good mental fit with the system. It's universally acknowledged that salaries are higher elsewhere, but leaving would involve abandoning the track of research progression they're already entrained with. (It brings to mind the joke about the elephant-deconstipator at the circus who could never contemplate leaving showbiz). I don't write any of this with rancour or ill-feeling, nor do I wish to over-egg things and make it seem like indoctrination. More like academia is a successful meme that shares characteristics with other enduring systems. If one wishes to poach from this particular set of people who are highly capable but driven by intellectual status (as well as of course their legitimate intellectual research interest) then one needs to offer them a substitute status. Concrete suggestions to achieve this: - Professional certification. I'm sure a lot of people here hate the idea but progression towards say being a Chartered Software Engineer might motivate academic types. - Maintain university links. Collaborate with universities, offer secondments, let employees collaborate along their research interests. This isn't novel, good research organisations already do this. But it's probably rarer for the Silicon Valley 'Twitter for Dogs' type startups being involved with this sort of thing. - Invent some other kind of new status or proxy for status. My point is that offering enough money to compensate for dropping one's academic dreams presumably won't work, since such money is already on offer, and PhDs remain predominantly focused on the academic track rather than using their talents elsewhere.