It is several repeated and very costly attempts that I made to do just that which leads me to give the advice I did.

The pyramid quote is an interesting one. Obviously there is a tension between being passionate about an idea/goal/cause but not being overly siloed. It seems the best-case scenario is: pick your passion, find some people who're thinking in the same general direction, and compromise the vision among yourselves.

Let's just say that the thought of solving some of the problems I'm interested in from outside academia has occurred to me. But I'm sure it's not all sunshine and rainbows on the outside, either, and moving from academia whose primary motivator is risk aversion to something like a startup is an extreme culture shock, the more so because my objective would be building something real, rather than bilking gullible VCs into an acquihire.

Really good thoughts there.