Running a university research lab is very much like running a small company. I am responsible for not only portions of my own annual salary,¹ but also my graduate students' stipends and tuition and, of course, all the funding necessary to actually do the work. With this, particularly at ...

… lacking the feedback that people in the private sector get from product sales (or not), us academics are particularly susceptible to falling in love with pretty ideas that don’t improve anything.

http://blog.regehr.org/archives/1134