To some extent. The big difference is this: if you leave the academic career path with a PhD in ancient history or medieval basket weaving, you're pretty darn-near unemployable and will probably wind up making $35K editing crummy manuscripts for a fourth-rate publishing house (or doing three months work in Moscow for $12,000 and calling it "lucrative"). But most of the folks I know who've left the academic career path with a PhD in physics have jumped straight into obscenely highly-paid jobs in finance, management consulting, etc.