Because having a PhD is proof that you can do research, and there are so many PhDs available that Intel has absolutely no motivation to increase their hiring ri

Because having a PhD is proof that you can do research, and there are so many PhDs available that Intel has absolutely no motivation to increase their hiring risk one iota by extending their net past that market. Even if a BA was only 0.000001% less likely to pan out than a PhD it would not be worth it. There's such a shortage of STEM graduates that PhDs get hired to do stuff you can actually do with a MOOC (or to carry a pager at Google).