I was conversing with my spouse about the places to which I applied. One thing that came up was cost-of-living. Right now I make significantly more than my spouse (6x). My salary will most likely be halved if I manage the make the switch. I hope it will still be worth it. A lot of academics I talk to tell me I've made the correct call in going to industry (they don't know that I took this job to get experience to bring to academia). They say the money is worth not working on exactly what you want to, also they say having a boss (and the other crappy things that come with industry) is a minor inconvenience given the higher cashflow. But here's the thing: they don't know since most of them have been in academia their whole lives. Just like I can't speak to academia other than from a grad student's perspective. They think that grant writing and teaching will stop in industry. It doesn't. I write to a different audience begging for money and I play politics all the time. Except I get screamed at when something goes wrong
This brings me to my point: what's the price of (research) freedom? For me, it will be a cut in my salary by 50%. Moving from a high-level position for a major medical device company is a big move. So I made a pros and cons list. I won't share it unless you want it, but industry won just in pure amount of things on the list. But, when I weighed things (1-10) scale on importance, academia won big-time. The people in academia telling me that I should stay see the $$$, but I'm certain they would get tired of the grind very quickly. But when some douche is monitoring their hours, and telling them not to pursue something interesting because there really isn't a market for it, they'll realize how lucky they are.
I suspect this is a "grass is greener..." situation since academics have their own crappy stuff to deal with, but the things I hold most dear (not money and patents) are not in industry, so maybe I'm correct. And should invest in a lawn mower.
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