That's an interesting way to make selection bias sound like "pretty good"; I disagree on the face of it, even if I am open to considering the idea of completely

That's an interesting way to make selection bias sound like "pretty good"; I disagree on the face of it, even if I am open to considering the idea of completely doing away with academia. I don't know and am skeptical, but intuitively, the day that would happen is the day that Nobel prizes are routinely awarded to FAANG companies and not to academics. Further, since your original position was strongly that academia is useless, it is your onus to back up the implication that PhDs are not (generally) needed/useful, and using "well hmm, not sure if absolutely necessary" logic is fallacious and clouds the issue.