[the_snooze]

Being a professor at a research university is really multiple non-overlapping jobs all at once: managing your research group, bringing in funding and publicity, helping run your department and research community, and teaching classes. PhD programs really only prepare you for the nuts-and-bolts of research, and maybe teaching. Only if you're lucky, your advisor was thoughtful enough to make proper introductions to help you get started on funding and prestige out of the gate.

It's not surprising that lots of people opt out or wash out of this system because the expectations don't match the formal preparation for it.

[glitchc]

You can blame the bureaucrats for this multi-facted outcome. Their ever-increasing pressure of getting new funding and balancing your books with frequent budget updates is what leads to so much time spent on those activities. And of course they tie those activities to your promotion, instead of the importance of your discoveries which is what should be the only thing that matters.