Having dropped out of University while studying Computer Vision, i've witnessed this much too often in former friends and colleagues.

Smart people doing remarkable things don't seem to have a place in our society anymore, neither in academia nor in the private economy. Sure there are exceptions.

Microsoft Research, Google X and of course a handful of universities that actually work as they are supposed to, but for most of my ex colleague's these weren't real options as noone ever instilled the courage in them to find their way there, or survive the competition.

It's strange that most of them are building CRUD Software, Writing Shaders for Game Engines or work in marketing, instead of pushing us towards breakthroughs in CV and with that AI.