&gt; It&#x27;s just a way for people with PhDs to remain in academia, doing research, so that they can build up their publication list to land tenure-track academic positions.<p>Precisely this. Or also (my case): we have been doing research all our lives and were too afraid or too insecure to try to pursuit some other path. In my case, for a variety of reasons, I landed a postdoctoral position after I got my PhD but never really felt comfortable in it. Took a whole year to build up the nerve to start looking for industry positions until I finally found one that looked like a good match to my set of skills and I finally left academia. I don&#x27;t regret it a bit.