>a PhD from the Media Lab for putting a motion sensor and servo motor in a toy bear so it waved at you when a coworker wanted to talk to you Part of the reason

>a PhD from the Media Lab for putting a motion sensor and servo motor in a toy bear so it waved at you when a coworker wanted to talk to you Part of the reason I declined a PhD scholarship back in my university days was that due to this kind of credential inflation, the value of a doctorate is steadily declining and there are far too few academic jobs to go around - most of the graduates I talked to were essentially forced out into industry, and if you're not specialising in something with real-world utility you've essentially wasted several years of your life while making yourself overqualified for lower-level jobs.