A professor who had also worked in the private sector told me: In academia, everyone is smart and some of them are nice. In the private sector, everyone is nice and some of them are smart.
I don't think they meant it literally, but more in the sense of different places on the trade-off continuum: E.g., academia is willing to tolerate more bad behavior but less lack-of-smarts.
This doesn't really square with the horror stories I see from the private sector.