Depends what sort of company you wish to produce. 23andMe you could definitely have done without a PhD as its much more traditional market fit "lets do logistic

Depends what sort of company you wish to produce. 23andMe you could definitely have done without a PhD as its much more traditional market fit "lets do logistics". But Illumina to produce the micro array in the first place or have the software to optimise probes etc. that takes a certain level of understanding have noticed or seen the value of that thing laying around in academia before it was mainstream. All the interesting new ideas/IP are sat within an academic network more than a company one at the moment so accessing that network is a big reason for a PhD.