This must be heavily field-dependent. I've honestly never seen that among economists. It's no doubt most common that someone in a PhD program will want to get a

This must be heavily field-dependent. I've honestly never seen that among economists. It's no doubt most common that someone in a PhD program will want to get an academic job, but places like Amazon and the Federal Reserve hire tons of PhD's. I had a student request to work with me because he thought that gave him the best chance of getting a nonacademic job, and I didn't see that as unusual. I have a student at this very moment going through the interview process with one of the big SV companies. For that matter, I would be happy to talk if a nonacademic employer were interested in me. Edit: Take a look at Paul Romer's bio. He worked his way up to full professor at Stanford, quit to start a business, and last year won the Nobel for his early academic work.