I get asked a lot: why stay in academia, all the excitement in AI is happening in industry with massive compute. And I am seeing some profs leaving academia, but also seeing lots of researchers in industry looking to go back to academia, especially those who don’t work on LLMs. I have spent some time and actively working with industry, and it has been a great experience, but for me the answer is simple: 1. Students: Nothing can replace working with really smart & amazing students. 2. Academic freedom: In general, industry will one way or another dictate what you should work on. Today it is LLMs, tomorrow it is something else. The good old days of "here is a cool idea, let me investigate and publish" are pretty much over. But as an academic, I can work on whatever I want: I can start working on "black holes" tomorrow if I choose to. 3. And my favourite one: No reorgs -- big tech really loves reorgs that happen every few months. Finally, as an academic, I can always take some time off, work in industry or start-up, and come back if I want to. Going into industry is usually a one-way street: It is far easier to go to industry from academia and much harder the other way around.