[wanderingmind]

The author became a professor unlike the 90% of the other PhD graduates, so you need to take all the lessons with a heavy dose of selective bias. Most of the things the article talks about is the effective processes the author has learned during PhD. This is definitely useful in any work where agency is involved. However, these effective routines can be learned from a decent job in a good organization and does not need a PhD. There is nothing in the article that suggests a unique learning that can be achieved only through pouring years into an endless pursuit like PhD.

In my opinion, there is nothing unique that can be learned only through a PhD for a successful career (except maybe for a tiny slice of outlier of CS researchers). Most people will be well better served to take a job that provides some agency, or better try to start a company and fail. They can learn a lot more this way without jeopardizing their financial future.

[mcguire]

"Most of what I learned during my PhD had nothing to do with my dissertation topic, grad school, or even computer science.

"These lessons are so ingrained into me now that I'm shocked when I find out that not everyone knows them! I think they can be applied to virtually any office job."

Taking a job that provides some agency is harder than it sounds. As is starting a company and failing without jeopardizing one's financial future. (And not everyone is really enthusiastic about learning those lessons that can only be learned that way.)

[wanderingmind]

You can LC for a few months closed door to get a decent SWE job in a good company that can provide you enough agency. PhD on the other hand requires spending 5+ years in a lab cutoff from reality and ending up with no skills to get a real world job. Yes you lose some money (mostly other people money) if a company fails, but the learnings are well worth the loss of money. Its definitely not the case with a PhD.