In the world of academic research, the disconnect between the work you do on a hypothetical product for a paper and the actual creation of a consumer-ready product is vast and well documented (especially by this comic strip).
The Author finds this disconnect to be particularly humorous, as he has spent much of his adult life commenting on it. Rather than duplicating much of his previous work, he has decided to summarize his findings in a chart. This will, hopefully, conclude his multi-year study into the difference between academia and business.
