[f6v]

I know where you're coming from, I've been there myself not so long ago, I'm your age and had the same thoughts. You're making judgments based on your feelings and frustrations rather than facts. Let me give some examples.

> is that the industry seemed to shift into something else.

I bet the industry was always the same. Look at Neo's cubicle in the Matrix! There always were MBAs, and there always were glorified hackers. You just do not notice all the people who work on exciting things now.

> academia is dying, and dare i say irrelevant

That is a huge oversimplification. It's true that 99% of research will be put into the table and never applied anywhere. Yet the academia is responsible for studying fundamental aspects of life, which directly affects you and your family. We can now sequence the genomes of cancer patients to create a personalised treatment plan, just to give one example. Where do you think that knowledge comes from? Applying the same logic, we could say that VC and startups are completely irrelevant, since all they do is burn money without producing useful products. But that would simply not be the case.

Starting the company is definitely not a panacea. Imagine having to deal with sales yourself, when you call MBAs the conmen!

I'd encourage you to deeply reflect on what you want to do in life and which areas are of interest to you. https://www.principles.com was exceptionally useful in this regard.