The funny part is that Einstein wasn't even in academia until after he was famous. If anything this speaks to me that we want only those people in the field who would do it even if there was no reward for they will be the ones who produce earth shattering breakthroughs.
This is why I vehemently support SciHub and hope other budding researchers get the same breaks that I did, without having to kill themselves in dead institutions.
Having had one foot back in academia for 10 more years now I am absolutely convinced it is doomed. The death spiral of efficient self-cannibalism is reaching a frenzy. Outside a handful of top tier institutions they are not even fit places for teaching and learning, never mind original research. It is so sad what "ideology" can do to great institutions and nations.
No...he was doing his PhD when he published the special relativity and other papers that made him famous.