I’ve been reflecting this past year since the job market on my decision to stick with academia over industry. One thing I think I can add to the conversation is my experience as a first-gen PhD having watched the ups and downs of my Dad’s (crazy!) career in industry. 1/N https://twitter.com/anthonyleezhang/status/1351265807964233728

For context, I finished the Econ market last year with one academic offer (BYU) and one industry offer (Amazon). I was very much at the crossroads. I love research, but I’m (still) nervous about the publishing game. ~half my PhD friends chose industry over academia.

I experienced the industry life vicariously through my Dad’s career, which in retrospect was a pretty insane roller coaster. It definitely shaped my decision, and ultimately left me pretty happy with the academic path.

After his MBA, Dad hustled his way up the corporate ladder at Northwest Airlines. He made it to a couple rungs below the executive suite, at one point heading a large team in financial ops, and at one point managing operations at the MSP airport. Then it all came crashing down.

The corporate world is fickle. His department under-performed, his immediate boss got axed because of internal politics, he bounced around to a couple random divisions (cargo ops, etc.) and finally, he got canned in a massive round of layoffs.

Luckily he got out with a pension in summer of 2000. The 9/11 attacks rocked the industry and basically killed the company, leading it to be sold off to Delta for parts. When he started climbing that ladder in 1990, he had no idea it would crumble beneath him a decade later.

At that point, he had 6 kids, was unemployed for a year, and finally got hired as the CFO of a tiny, struggling, podunk charter airplane operation in Woodland, CA. (Btw my dad loves airplanes, but his bad eyesight prevented him becoming a commercial pilot as was his dream)

We had to leave our suburban dream home in Minneapolis for a Central Valley cowtown. Woodland is the canned tomato mecca of the Central Valley down the road from the uppity Davis, California. We were the Pawnee to their Eagleton.

Dad spent four years trying to right the sinking ship of Woodland Aviation Inc. , but it eventually went under too. Here was rock bottom for our little (big) family.

We were certainly never in poverty. But my first car was a pink (!) Mary Kay Buick Century given to us for free by a fellow church member. So yeah, that was me rolling up to track practice in a pink Buick.

Anyway, the story has a happy ending. My dad’s sister-in-law approached him with a start-up idea to create education software to teach English as a second language. My dad pulled his whole Northwest Airline pension and co-founded the company.

We moved to Utah so he could be the CFO and the rest is history. Ten years later, he sold the company to an NYC equity firm and now spends his retirement flying around in his Beech Bonanza like he always wanted to do since he was a kid.

So back to my story. Most of my friends at MIT (especially Americans) had parents that had PhDs. A few MDs maybe, but basically a bunch of doctor’s kids. To them, industry is the “safe route”. And it’s true, for now, I could use my fancy python skills to make bank at amazon

The tricky thing is where would I be in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years? I think we undervalue how stressful corporate life eventually becomes. Our skills atrophy, we get get squeezed out as we climb the ladder. We might take a big bet on a start-up and lose (unlike my dad).

So as an academic outsider, I’ve long been enamored with academic life. It’s tough to get tenure at a good place where I will enjoy working. No doubt about it. But tenure offers extreme job security that is pretty unparalleled in the corporate world.

(Plus I really like research and teaching! Obviously that’s a must.)

This really isn’t an advice thread. My experience is probably not super relevant to your experience. But one thing I know is that the realities of an industry career are way under-represented in the PhD world. The grass is greener and all that.

Right now I’m super happy to stick with the academic path. That might change! But I figure it’s much easier to go academia-> industry than vice versa, so I’m really happy to have a chance to keep pushing in this direction.