With what end goal? I could also never leave a library, ever, and maximize my learning that way. And I'd die alone and inexperienced. Of course there's some give and take...

I trade my "pure learning" opportunities to be able to still grow and develop while earning an income that empowers me to live my life as I desire. I get to solve real world problems and challenges, rather than open ended ones.

I'm not trying to take anything from academics, but the most useful result will always come from a combination of academia and business. Neither would exist without the other, and there's and endless amount to learn from either side.

Any end goal. The fact that there are no distractions to purely pursue a specific goal is what makes an academic setting special. There are no managers and business specialists hovering over every single decision being made.

That doesn't jive with everything I've read - some of which here on HN - about universities. Grants, tenure, cost-cutting by administrators, ego, are all said to be sources of politics and distractions. And teaching, of course. Are they wrong?

They are not wrong. If I were to go back then the situation for me would be quite different. If your intent is to go for a tenure track position then you have to put up with all sorts of stuff but if your goal is to learn and write a thesis with the intent of going back to industry then you'll have a much easier time. The usual teaching and class load is easy to handle and you don't have to worry about grants and all the other stuff especially if you have a bit of savings.

The difference is between maximizing tenure-track job prospects vs learning. Surprisingly those two goals can sometimes be at odds and that is usually what you hear about on HN. People that were trying to maximize for both learning and future job prospects inadvertently running up against academic bureaucracy. If you have a clear goal then you'll have a much easier time.

This is laughably inaccurate. There are a ton of politics in an academic setting. Pressure to publish, to get grants and raise funding, grades and the financial pressures of being a grad student. You make it sound like people in school have unlimited time to sit back and think about big problems. It just replaces quarterly profits and management goals with conference paper deadlines and academic departmental goals.