[ThePhysicist]

There are some things which are hard to do outside a PhD. I knew that I would be better off working in industry after graduating (though I'm in a country where I earn no where near a FAANG salary) but I still cherish the time I spent doing physics research. The cadence, experience and sense of achievement that a PhD can give are hard to find outside of Academia. That said it's always a bit of luck, I know brilliant people that just had bad luck with their research subject or their advisors, so as always there's no guarantee.

I'm not sure about the $1 Million opportunity cost, do you really need that much money? If you can earn that much in a couple of years you will be extremely well off regardless of whether you do a PhD or not. Certain things in life can be bought with money, but time spent can't be bought back with money. Personally I wouldn't trade my PhD time for money even retroactively. The PhD gave me a chance to live abroad, meet many interesting people and mostly set my own agenda.