[crazy_horse]

I don't want to say of course it is, but of course it is.

It's an environment full of smart and hungry and competitive people. There are politics, yes, but you can damn well choose to avoid them, especially if you offer value.

Nobody in any industry presents all of the warts and difficulties of getting to a solution. If you wanted to hear about six years of failed experiments, I've got lots of time, but I feel like you don't want to hear it and neither do the people reading and writing research papers.

You'll find that outside of the superstar schools, the smaller schools (certain depts) are staffed with brilliant people. They'll tell you about the nuances of academia if you're a normal person but they're not going to show up on HN where people say what they do is worthless, so people get warped views of what the majority of it is.