If you can negotiate a low teaching load, it might be OK in some cases.
Nonetheless, I agree with what you say. I'd add there is a ton of nasty politics, bullying, etc. which might be hard to avoid while you are on tenure track chasing tenure.
An assistant prof. position at UCSD I was looking into a few weeks ago was paying $115-145k to identical roles in the department.
I know Google has some other benefits, like stock and bonus. Plus, compensation will grow more rapidly. And there are tons of high-paying SWE jobs, whereas good academic positions are scarce.
In Academia, it's hard to exceed $200k. Some professors often get $200-300k from consulting. But those I know that earn so much on side gigs are frequently gaming university IP rules.
https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Google,Salesforce&track=Soft...
Base salary is the wrong comparison. As you move up to higher levels and get stacking equity grants, the liquid stock vesting routinely becomes >50% of total comp at FAANG -- i.e. you have to look at total comp.
It's not even close to comparable. Also worth noting: as a PhD with assistant prof levels of experience, you'd typically join as L5 (source: myself), which has total comp starting at $365k according to levels.fyi
FAANG salaries for MS in CS at or above $300k. Starting salary in genomics, stats, ML and AI in a very well funded medical college with PhD and 4-year postdoc is less than half that.
From what my friends got in academia and industry, I'd say at entry-level, professors at good schools are competitive with FAANG salaries, particularly when the cost of living is lower where the university is located. The raises and promos lead industry people to outpace them though because of the lower ceiling in academia.
Note, where I consult, new 4 year grads get offers that often exceed the salary of their tenured professors.
consider this: You can be a new grad, get hired at Apple, and earn an entry-level salary[0]. Let's say we won't include the bonus and you get 130k/yr. You colleague is a new grad and goes to a PhD program at Duke University[1] where they earn 33k/yr.
In your first year, your PhD program colleague earns 97k less than you.
From years 1-3, your average base pay will be 138k, and your PhD colleague earns the same wage. They now earn 105k less than you for each of those years. Your colleague is in the hole over 400k opportunity wise.
In your 4th and 5th year, you can expect to earn 141k on average. Your colleague, still making 33k/yr, is now making 108k/yr less than you. At the end of 5 years, your colleague has completed their PhD and is in the hole over 600k in opportunity cost.
Now your colleague gets an associate professorship position. This assumes your colleague is extremely lucky and does not go into a post-doc. They earn 115k [2] base at NYU. In your 6th year at apple you're still making that 141k. You're still out-earning them by 26k. Your colleague is on the tenure track, which can take 6 or 7 years. [3]. All that time you're getting more and more YoE, while their pay band stays relatively the same during this time. Let's say the opportunity cost is 26k over 6 years, so an additional 156k to their over 600k.
At full professorship at NYU, your colleague is earning 162k [4] after 5 years PhD + 6 years tenure track. You, an Apple engineer (probably senior at this point), with 11 YoE are earning 165k/yr [5] at this point. Your colleague has cost themselves 750k in opportunity cost, and you're still earning a bit more than them! A full professor may never catch up to the opportunity cost of academic track, salary wise.
tl;dr: EVEN IF you get paid 160k base as a full professor, your years of phd + tenure track associate professor salary will mean you will likely never, ever catch up with someone who new-graded at a FAANG and never left that circle.
0. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Apple-Software-Engineer-New... 1. https://gradschool.duke.edu/financial-support/tuition-fees-a... 2. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/NYU-New-York-University-Ass... 3. https://www.beyondphdcoaching.com/academic-career/how-long-d... 4. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/NYU-New-York-University-Pro... 5. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Apple-Senior-Software-Engin...
If you can put up with living inside of a police state like Apple, then maybe that's for you, but academia is such a completely different environment from that (very open and all about collaboration), it's hard to put a $$ amount on what it would take for me to put up with that abuse.
Even if you are laid off at Google or Facebook, with those on your resume, anybody will take you, unless you are some weird incompetent fluke. If you didn't get a new grant, you'll have a hard time in academia. Good luck switching institutions once you are unsuccessful in the grant game.
I have seen people with 2-3 NIPS papers and a bunch more from other conferences failed to obtain assistant professorship, it's ridiculous right now.
First, faculty salaries as reported are typically 9-month. There's an extra 3 months of earning potential for professors, where they are effectively free agents. They can spend that doing research, or any number of other activities. Or nothing
Second, professors own their work product. If you are a salaried employee at a corporation, everything you do on company time is owned by the corporation. If you try to sell your work product or take it to another job, you will likely be fired and/or sued. This is not true for faculty; we own our lectures and all the content we produce for our courses. We can take it and use it other jobs, sell it as a book, make it available for free, or anything.
Third, we own our own time off the job. I'm free to run a consultancy even though I'm employed full time as an academic. I can make as much as I want through that, and people are willing to pay what I want because of my degree and my affiliation with the institution I work at. I doubt Google will let you trade on being a Google engineer while working at Google. Indeed, most FAANGs have a clause in their contracts stating that they basically own all ideas you think of, whether on or off the clock. If you're willing to take their salary for that kind of trade, then you might think it's worth it. For academics, they think perhaps they will have a good idea one day and turn it into a startup or patent it, and many do.
Fourth, I have control over a lot of other people's money. So while I'm not paid a lot, I get to use millions of dollars in funding and equipment. If I move to another university, I can take my money and my project with me. I have hundreds of thousands of dollars of sensors and equipment in my office that I've bought over the years that I personally didn't have to spend a dime on, but which is pretty much entirely mine to use.
All this is to say that a straight comparison of salaries isn't going to get you the full story. For instance, is there any amount of money you can pay such that you can take 3 months off every summer, and still have a position in the fall? How much would you pay your company to own an idea you had on company time? Do you have an office with a door? Do you have an assistant? Do you own what you work on?
They can claim that all they want, but in California, that's not exactly true. What you do, on your off time, on your own hardware, that isn't related to a work project, is yours.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...
People pursuing the university research track may simply not be optimizing their years on earth to maximize their bank accounts.