[thanatropism]

I know a handful of Econ phds working in data science; and Google, FB etc. have hired top economists as well.

The Phineas Gage of applied quantitative Econ is demand estimation. You typically want to know the elasticity of quantities sold to price so to inform pricing policies. But the problem is that causality is cloudy -- low prices cause a decrease in supply -- so you never know what you're looking at.

People with a decent training in econometrics know how to treat this problem.

I'm pretty sure orgs like Amazon were trying to do naive demand estimation, fell flat on their noses and copped to having to hire people who have thought about the underlying conceptual issues before.