[bananaquant]

> But what kind of recognition do they get?

They get paid well. Most of the stuff they do cannot be published due to intellectual property reasons, so they indeed miss out on academic recognition. This is a trade-off one has to make.

Sad to hear the story of that person. Ideally, you should not start a PhD unless you have a burning question to answer and need ample time to study it. Given that a career post-graduation is not guaranteed, it's best to hedge your bets and study something that has immediate applications and/or gives you transferable skills.