I was aware of some of what he said. I encountered people being "scooped" before, and thought it was outrageous that they wouldn't publish their work. I went through extreme bouts of depression and burnout myself, and saw the pettiness and vindictiveness among academics.

What I didn't know about was how important the "h-score" was. I only recently heard about it regarding the room temp superconductor, and it seemed sketchy then. I really didn't know about people buying their way onto papers. Maybe that means where I'm at isn't as bad, simply because that's not something happening here.