It's temporary on a generational timeline. When I think of young and old PhDs alike, I don't think of high status individuals. I think of people who spent too

It's temporary on a generational timeline. When I think of young and old PhDs alike, I don't think of high status individuals. I think of people who spent too long in academia. Most of them don't contribute breakthrough insights to their field in their lifetime, but rather make indentations to broader collective knowledge. That's not high status to me. I think more highly of someone who owns their own plumbing business. An employer has more status to me because they command labor. A PhD graduate will most of the time be contributing deep narrow insight to a larger organization, not using their studies for entrepreneurial pursuits.