I occasionally run into this "I'm suspicious of Ph.D.s in industry" phenomenon and frankly it's baffling. (disclosure: I am obviously biased by having a Ph.D. a

I occasionally run into this "I'm suspicious of Ph.D.s in industry" phenomenon and frankly it's baffling. (disclosure: I am obviously biased by having a Ph.D. and no longer being an academic) Ph.Ds. in industry create lots of amazing things: UNIX, 747s, airbags, wireless protocols, manufacturing robots, search engines, and logistics optimization systems are just a few that almost everyone depends on every single day (indirectly in some cases). These are not systems that can be designed without a large amount of focused domain knowledge, which is precisely what the Ph.D. entails. Sure, there are some people with Ph.D.s who are impractical and unsuited for front-line "get things done" work. I can assure you that is an intrinsic personality trait and not something created by intensely focused study on interesting ideas, which is the defining characteristic of the doctorate.