"should I really spend three more years here toiling away at very cool but very obscure science just to purchase a lottery ticket? Where if I lose the lottery (which is the most likely result by far) I will have languished in postdoc roles until I burnt out past my prime?"
Oh man, +1,000,000. As someone who made the other choice from the same position you were in, this is exactly the advice I give to any fresh-faced grad student who gets all glassy-eyed and weak-minded in the face of doing "cool research" for some wonk professor for years while letting the real world slide by in the background.
You don't realize it when you're 22, but you've only got so much irrational exuberance and tolerance for crazy work schedules in reserve. Once that phase of your life is gone, it's gone, and you'll never get it back. Also, your friends are all moving on, too: the people with whom you can do things like co-found companies won't be in the same risk-tolerance categories when you're finally done with your research-based vacation from life.
During the time I was getting a PhD, I missed out on the second-biggest technology wealth creation event of my lifetime. My best friends -- the guys with whom I'd want to found companies -- got older, married, and had children. They're not able to take risks like that now. The world is harder and more expensive.
Now I'm working in the technology industry anyway, and I look around the world and see younger guys who are VP or C-level roles, leading large teams, and otherwise further along on the career ladder. But I have a PhD.
For every one of you there is another who dropped out of a PhD program to start a company that eventually went bust and now they are in the same position as you, but without the PhD. Everyone tosses the dice. Everyone has regrets. Don't beat yourself up about it.
Look on the bright side: your PhD is an insurance policy against ageism. When you are 50 you will still be able to find (or make for yourself) low-risk, high-paying work doing neat technical stuff. The VP and C-level peers that you envy so much now will essentially be managers for the rest of their lives.
"Everyone tosses the dice. Everyone has regrets. Don't beat yourself up about it."
Yes, life is always a dice roll. The difference is that one of the two bets has a much higher positive expectation. Done intelligently, neither choice will leave you destitute, but entrepreneurship could leave you rich.
I don't beat myself up over past choices that I can't change -- but I try to make my point forcefully to people who are about to go down the same blind alleys that I already know well.
When I started, I don't remember any students talking about what we were going to do, postdocing, or the like. I think none of us had really thought about it very much. Definitely excitement about the subject was blinding at that point.
Now, my friends, who have finished, are either super depressed about (not) finding academic jobs or have moved to other fields entirely. Pretty sad.
I made more of a lateral move within my field, so am hoping for better results, but that has its own set of challenges.
Oh man, +1,000,000. As someone who made the other choice from the same position you were in, this is exactly the advice I give to any fresh-faced grad student who gets all glassy-eyed and weak-minded in the face of doing "cool research" for some wonk professor for years while letting the real world slide by in the background.
You don't realize it when you're 22, but you've only got so much irrational exuberance and tolerance for crazy work schedules in reserve. Once that phase of your life is gone, it's gone, and you'll never get it back. Also, your friends are all moving on, too: the people with whom you can do things like co-found companies won't be in the same risk-tolerance categories when you're finally done with your research-based vacation from life.
During the time I was getting a PhD, I missed out on the second-biggest technology wealth creation event of my lifetime. My best friends -- the guys with whom I'd want to found companies -- got older, married, and had children. They're not able to take risks like that now. The world is harder and more expensive.
Now I'm working in the technology industry anyway, and I look around the world and see younger guys who are VP or C-level roles, leading large teams, and otherwise further along on the career ladder. But I have a PhD.