I got this close to getting into academia, landing 2nd out of 50+ applicants for a cushy PhD position. The day they told me was also the day I finally came to the conclusion that academia isn't for me, largely because of the problems he's describing: a system of misaligned incentives that catches people in a crushing rat race that's more about appeasing funders and making grueling overtime than about the romantiziced ideal of uncovering hidden truths about the world. Didn't stop me from doing science as a hobby though. My academic paper got accepted last Friday! It's a methodological paper in a technical field though so it avoids a lot of the traps. My incentives are different because of that - I actually want people to replicate and improve my approach, because I know it's not perfect.