Except the impact on people's reputation, livelihood, and lives are not really small stakes.

I think that quote comes partially from the perspective of someone who doesn't recognize the nature of the stakes because they're different, not because they're smaller - if it was really intended as much more than a snarky critique of academia.

It's not as if everything outside of academia somehow involves much higher stakes. You could basically dismiss the whole of Google or Facebook as being small stakes, following similar logic.

The stakes just aren’t big in the grand scheme of things for academics, even at the top of the field. Beating someone to a major publication means some temporary fame in your circles and a small hop closer to tenure (if you don’t have it). Grant writing will be a little easier and maybe your students will learn about your methods (unlikely if they are undergrads).

In industry, a breakthrough correctly capitalized on can mint you millions of dollars. If you start a company, it could be tens to hundreds of millions. You then are not beholden to an institution or grants and can do what you want.

Just because you have a reputation and livelihood doing something does not mean the stakes are big in the general sense. Otherwise every job would be high stakes for everyone and the term would be meaningless.

The quote came from a professor at Columbia University.

Mmmm. Is that a reference to Billions or did they lift it from somewhere else?

Google "Sayre's Law"