As a son of a university professor who has worked mostly with startups in my career, I would say, if you have tenure, or a good shot at it, I would not leave.
I explored academia when I was young and gave up because I realised how limiting it was going to be for me. The infighting, and politics are crazy. Software is a game that's best played in teams and the kind of team you can realistically build in academia is limited (for reasons I'm sure you're far too aware of).
However, as I've gotten older (getting near the tail end of my career), I've discovered something interesting. In business, your teams are composed of the people you can hire. It's not a true collaboration either. Small startups are the most fun because it's small and cosy and you can usually get a good feel for your coworkers before you join. But as the business grows, the business needs take over. At some point, your contribution becomes one of encoding the (usually ill thought-out) dreams of the business people.
There are plenty of interesting problems, but unfortunately, there is very little desire to solve these problems. And as the business grows, your influence is likely to diminish greatly. It's very frustrating to see the problem you want to work on hovering in front of your face, but be denied access to it.
As an academic with tenure, you have something incredibly valuable: freedom. You work on what you want to work on. You solve the problems that you want to solve. And, as you said, you may not be able to get grants, or hire grad students and get a lot done, but you also don't have to grind through the day following other people's priorities (for the most part).
I explored academia when I was young and gave up because I realised how limiting it was going to be for me. The infighting, and politics are crazy. Software is a game that's best played in teams and the kind of team you can realistically build in academia is limited (for reasons I'm sure you're far too aware of).
However, as I've gotten older (getting near the tail end of my career), I've discovered something interesting. In business, your teams are composed of the people you can hire. It's not a true collaboration either. Small startups are the most fun because it's small and cosy and you can usually get a good feel for your coworkers before you join. But as the business grows, the business needs take over. At some point, your contribution becomes one of encoding the (usually ill thought-out) dreams of the business people.
There are plenty of interesting problems, but unfortunately, there is very little desire to solve these problems. And as the business grows, your influence is likely to diminish greatly. It's very frustrating to see the problem you want to work on hovering in front of your face, but be denied access to it.
As an academic with tenure, you have something incredibly valuable: freedom. You work on what you want to work on. You solve the problems that you want to solve. And, as you said, you may not be able to get grants, or hire grad students and get a lot done, but you also don't have to grind through the day following other people's priorities (for the most part).