[jondubois]

I worked on some pretty big projects and did a lot of research. That was easy.

Part of the reason why it was easy was because I knew that if I put in the effort, I would almost certainly pass the course. At uni, if you're smart, the odds are always stacked firmly in your favor.

Failing a PhD thesis during the defence is apparently a 'rare occurrence' in most universities.

By contrast, the odds of your startup not failing are like 10%. Now if we're talking about actual 'success' then that's like 1% or less (it certainly feels like that from where I'm standing).

With these sorts of odds, you don't have this feeling of 'meritocracy' that you might get if you came right out of uni.

[mikebenfield]

> Failing a PhD thesis during the defence is apparently a 'rare occurrence' in most universities.

Yes, but not for the reasons you think. Typically the advisor and thesis committee simply will not let the student defend (or at least will strongly urge the student not to defend) unless they are extremely confident the student is ready and will pass. A student failing the defense would be embarrassing for everyone, and so the real judging happens well before that. These days the defense is mostly a formality.

Moreover, students are not even admitted to the program unless they show very strong promise of being able to complete it. If you want to look at low success rates, here is one place to see it. Very few students graduating with a BS in any given field (computer science, mathematics, whatever) have any chance whatsoever of getting admitted to a decent PhD program in that field.

Why is it so hard for you to believe that getting a PhD (something you've never done and know nothing about) is hard?

[gbrown]

You do not have the experience or expertise to justify your claims; a PhD thesis is in no way like doing a regular research project, or passing a course in university.

The reason why failing a PhD thesis defense is rare is because your adviser should prevent you from defending until the product is sufficiently strong. Many, many, many more people fail by dropping out of a PhD program during their dissertation than fail by doing a poor defense. Comparing successful thesis defense rates to startup success rates is not valid.

[semi-extrinsic]

> The reason why failing a PhD thesis defense is rare is because your adviser should prevent you from defending until the product is sufficiently strong.

This. Failing a public defense is not like a startup failing, it's more like an IPO failing (as in, stock goes to zero within a short time). You don't do it if you aren't 99.9999% sure it won't fail.

[dnautics]

It's worth noting that some PhD students get passed because their advisors feel bad for them after they drop 8 years in the program and the advisors are too incompetent to actually bring up a student through the PhD with a successful project.

I've seen it happen five or six times (usually it's the same group of professors) at a top-tier research institute.

[tjl]

The external examiner should allow that to happen, if they're doing their job. The whole point of the external examiner is so professors can't just collude to pass people.

I've seen a number of things happen during a defence, but not this. The worst was seeing two professors (one of whom was the candidate's supervisor) on the committee argue with each other while the candidate just had to watch. It took a lot of work for the chair to reign them in. I think it was difficult for the chair because they were arguing in German and the chair didn't speak it since he wasn't from the German department (my friend was getting her Ph.D. in German literature).

[ramblenode]

> I worked on some pretty big projects and did a lot of research. That was easy.

Yes, I remember those days too. It was easy. It was also nothing like PhD research.

> Failing a PhD thesis during the defence is apparently a 'rare occurrence' in most universities.

In the US, most committees won't even let you schedule a defense unless they are prepared to pass you. What usually happens is the "all but dissertation" (ABD) route where one is writing in perpetuity or leaves the program without finishing.

In any case, why do you feel compelled to justify how much (harder?, richer?) your chosen path has been than a categorically different alternative path which you admittedly have no experience with? Please, at least rise above the level of posting misinformation.

[kyrre]

are you confusing the terms 'study' and 'research'?

[argv_empty]

Almost certainly, or his defense of the earlier claim would include some description of what new knowledge or novel techniques he developed with this research.