Academia has long used post-docs as sources of cheap labor. Good for them for finding a strong path into greener pastures in the private sector.

These things go in cycles, but right now I sense a strong desire to get out of the mess that is often found in academic science.

While it makes a lot of sense for individuals, science in the end will suffer since only potentially profitable studies will be made and basic research abandoned. Of course that might happen anyway in today's publish or perish climate and universities in profit seeking mode.

Basic science is doing fine. The issue is the glut of PhD's.

See graph here: http://futureoflife.org/2015/11/05/90-of-all-the-scientists-...

Agree with you. I am finishing up my PhD, and while I am glad I am not planning on pursuing academia further, I have met many wonderful scientists that are driven to continue furthering their science.

Do we want the fruits of scientific progress to be made publicly available and shared by all of society (one must grant that even public universities have already begun privatizing their work, which is sad) or for it to end up privatized as part of patent portfolios to go to the highest bidder and to serve those with the most capital?

I already know what the answer is if we look at the current incentives in place, but what do we want?

> Do we want the fruits of scientific progress to be made publicly available and shared by all of society [...] or for it to end up privatized as part of patent portfolios to go to the highest bidder and to serve those with the most capital?

Of course the former - but only as long as I can live from doing the research. As the German writer Bertolt Brecht put it in Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera): "Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral." ("Grub first, then ethics.").

In a capitalist society one can receive grub for work on ethics.

We need, as a society, to decide that it's worth investing in ethics, in basic research, etc, rather than trusting that market incentives will trickle out of these companies.

This sort of thing isn't new though, although every generation seems to forget the experiences of the past. The first wave of biotech startups was in the 1970s -- most of them failed with the main survivor being Genentech. It's not unlike how waves of Internet startups come and go. At times academia is the place to be, then industry, then academia again.

Which biotech startup is the hottest around?

Not surprising at all, considering how insanely competitive academic biology is today.

Actually, still kinda surprising given how crappy the salaries and working conditions can be in industrial biotechnology. Someone I'm close to worked in biotech and found that they consistently had 80-hour workweeks, were constantly asked to work weekends and holidays, and all for just $40k/year.