I am not sure if breadcrumbs means low compensation, but the comp at Google (especially for people succeeding) is high and low risk.

If you just want to write software (as opposed to run a business), being an engineer at Google is really nice. You get a ton of resources, work on projects that have millions of users, etc. Don't get me wrong, entrepreneurs are awesome. But it's a much, much broader skill set than what is required to be a successful software engineer.

As for academia, my personal problem with it is that it's too focused on elegant/complicated/clever solutions to problems that don't really exist. And the compensation is terrible.

Intelligence != entrepreneurship. And plenty of smart people flee academia because they want to avoid the politics (and get paid better to boot).

Isn't it funny how that line is always followed by, "But actually, they can be really dumb about this one thing."

If everyone starts their own company, who's going to work at yours?