[chimeracoder]

> It is roughly equivalent to chastizing NFL and NBA teams for taking all of the NCAA's best players, and paying them more.

That's characterizing industry as the more advanced form of academia (NFL/NBA are more advanced than NCAA). But that's not really true. Even at the companies with the most well-funded research teams, the actual kinds of research being done in industry are often different from the sorts of research those same individuals would be doing in academia.

And while it doesn't make the headlines as often (for obvious reasons), it's hardly unusual for people in industry to return to research in academic institutions.

We don't need to think of academia and industry as zero-sum, no, but we also don't need to think of academia as merely a stepping stone to industry, even if that's how it is used by some people.

[rqebmm]

> That's characterizing industry as the more advanced form of academia

It's not a perfect analogy, but I think he was mostly trying to hit on the amateur/professional split.

[chimeracoder]

> It's not a perfect analogy, but I think he was mostly trying to hit on the amateur/professional split.

Right, and I'm saying that it's inaccurate to claim that either academia or industry research is 'amateur'. They're both professional, just with different funding sources and different goals.