Is There a Social Capital Problem in Academics?

I think academia is very interesting because there's this curious social capital problem that happens. As I was like going through my PhD in the postdocs and things, the advice I generally got from people in math is like, well, you can either go teach somewhere, or you can maybe go join the NSA National Security Agency. And as I talk to more people, I discovered there are all kinds of potential career opportunities out there. But yeah, nothing to gain from that either. You don't need to really punch down so to speak. It's like winning a bar fight at like a dive bar.