[BeetleB]

Not a very helpful sentence in the context.

Yes, academia (at least STEM) is such that you need to be good at selling something. The difference is that the goal of a startup is to make money, whereas that's not the goal of research.

We could apply the mentality everywhere. Do you want to tell teachers they need to be as good at selling their skills as they are at teaching?

Researchers are there to research. If a theoretical physicist publishes a lot of papers in high quality journals without bringing in money (because they don't need the money to do the research), they'll be denied tenure. Even when doing experimental work: If I bring enough to buy my equipment, and pay for the staff (e.g. students) and publish good papers, I'll be denied tenure if my colleague who is doing very different research is bringing in a lot more money, because he has decided to target that metric.

Researchers need money to do their research. They shouldn't be asked to bring in a lot more than they need.

[seanr88]

I'm not sure you are disagreeing with me.

I'm just stating a situation I've observed first hand both in the academic world and in the business world.