I took a chance early in my career. I took a tenure-track faculty position. It's a risk because I've seen a number of high quality researchers and teachers fail to get tenure because they bet red and the roulette wheel of academic publishing came up black. The reward for success is lifetime job security (called tenure) and the freedom to sit here and talk to you--and research whatever I think is important. With that for context...from the NYTimes:
Tenure, a practice carried from Germany to the United States, was designed to guarantee academic freedom to professors by protecting them against dismissal. Some argue that it also protects incompetent or lazy teachers and sometimes leaves universities saddled with professors in disciplines that have lost currency.
Ouch.
