"In industry, though, no skeptical journal editor will review your work. It’s going to be a bunch of PMs and engineers, who will take you at your word that the analysis is what you say it is."
This is at odds with the tremendous amount of consulting I end up doing essentially double-checking industry analysis. I've had at least three projects where I am functionally cast in the role of "skeptical peer reviewer".
"They may have critiques, and good ones, but they will tend to stem from domain knowledge rather than a deep familiarity with the statistical properties of an estimator."
Similarly, in my work with industry partners, some of the most rigorous methodological discussions I've ever had have been with them.
"Writing for an academic audience, rather than plainly and directly for an audience of sharp non-experts"
This is definitely true. It's also good advice for folks in academia writing grant proposals to industry.
"Academia is characterized by well-trodden problems, hashed over for decades, and negligible novel data for resolving them. Industry is by comparison a mass of green field areas of inquiry with large budgets, minimal bureaucracy, and ample data."
None of this has been my experience. Indeed, most of my work with industry has been "How do we get this done on an absolute shoestring budget?"
"School tends to train people to inhabit a state where they passively wait for assignments."
This is a really weird statement. Any graduate student who has passed their preliminary exams should already be over this. If his friend was a faculty member? It's been years since he had an "assignment".
"You don’t need to ask permission to go to the bathroom and you can seize opportunities of your own volition rather than waiting for them to fall into your lap like an essay due a week from Friday."
Following on this - this is just a weird view of academia, especially given his example is someone at the faculty level.