You can actually do much of the exact same research at industry labs as at a university. You can even compete for the same government grants. In many fields the highest-cited authors with the most publications actually work in industry.
You will have managers in industry of course, where in academia you just have a dept chair and dean who only have a vague sense of what you're up to. On the other hand, in industry you can actually devote most of your time to doing the research yourself. Often they break the labor up into those that write grants and the team that does the work. Whereas in academia the incentives really drive you to spend all your time dealing with funding sources and students. When you do have free time, you then have a backlog of writing you want to get done.
