80,000 Hours is a website made by members of a very particular subculture. The “prototypical” PhD they’re imagining is in computer science, probably with a focu

80,000 Hours is a website made by members of a very particular subculture. The “prototypical” PhD they’re imagining is in computer science, probably with a focus on machine learning, probably at a highly-ranked school, by someone who went to a highly-ranked undergrad. Job prospects are relatively good. Pay is bad but industry internships during summer can compensate. Academic jobs are not quite as scarce, and R&D jobs in industry are plentiful. There is not an air of failure or taboo about moving on from academia after the degree. The calculation on a PhD is very different compared to most other fields, and certainly compared to humanities PhDs (which actually charge money to attend!)