Interesting that he doesn't seem to debate or reconcile how painful he found working on his PhD, with his decision to rejoin academia. He makes the persuasive point that he doesn't have the freedom to pursue long-term research in the industry, but he documented all the trade-offs inherent in that freedom in 'The PhD Grind'.
Is it just that he's on the other side of the advisor-student power-balance? Or that he has the experience and skills to negotiate them better?
IIRC, one reason his PhD was so hard is he spent a bunch of time working in a grind-it-out field (automated bug-finding) with an advisor who was sort of an outsider in the field. That's a recipe for a ton of hours spent on the wrong stuff with little agency. He only pivoted toward his current focus on HCI, learning, visualization, etc incidentally near the end of his PhD.
Since he's now familiar with and known in his chosen area, he may honestly be able to say to his students "I can help you do meaningful and rewarding research".
Is it just that he's on the other side of the advisor-student power-balance? Or that he has the experience and skills to negotiate them better?