I encourage you to think in terms of what is achievable thiout a CS PhD. What areas don't tend to be dominated by PhDs, and what areas are dominated by PhDs. M

I encourage you to think in terms of what is achievable thiout a CS PhD. What areas don't tend to be dominated by PhDs, and what areas are dominated by PhDs. My conclusion: Theory, algorithms, cryptography, and machine learning. There are tons of world experts in operating systems, graphics, databases, distributed systems, compilers, programming languages, computer architecture, security, and HCI without PhDs. In fact, I would argue some of these fields are dominated by non-PhDs (see: Ken Thompson, Linus Torvalds, etc.) I don't see a lot of non-PhDs doing cutting edge work in CS theory, algorithms, cryptography, or machine learning. Probably because these fields involve lots of theory and mathematics. Just a thought.