Recently I met a new coworker, a now-former professor who left academia. Like many, he seemed wounded by the experience. This is his first private-sector job. I have to give him respect: he left willingly. He had a plum position, and he was years away from tenure review. It’s hard to walk away from a place like that after a lifetime of striving. But he was unhappy, and he’d grown disenchanted with his research agenda, and didn’t enjoy the labor itself anymore, and it was degrading his ability to enjoy his private life; so he quit. Not everyone is brave enough to do that.