Good thread. There's a perfectly valid economic explanation of status, and it notes that people take compensation in a basket of goods, dollars + status (+ other things). Poor academics at least 50% choose that basket w knowledge ahead of time, bc they like status. https://twitter.com/Chris_arnade/status/1324936903636955136 …
Indeed. Btw, I've been in this game myself. I was quite poor for 14 years, but "I'm an entrepreneur!". 14 years of sunk cost is even worse than 6 years of getting a PhD, but local maxima can be escaped if one is lucky