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From the discussion here, it seems that HN turns out to be a very money-centric place. Somewhat surprising. It doesn’t even seem to occur to people that one mi

From the discussion here, it seems that HN turns out to be a very money-centric place. Somewhat surprising. It doesn’t even seem to occur to people that one might pursue a doctoral degree because one is interested in the subject and wants to do research. It’s always talked about as if getting a PhD is just another rung in a long ladder towards… earning a lot of money? Not only that — it’s apparently such an obvious fact that it’s an unacknowledged (though implicitly present) assumption in almost every comment here. The obsession with the ‘STEM’ acronym (well, really the grouping rather than the name) also winds me up, but I better not go there…

declan_roberts 2y ago
The only difference between a PhD and a hobby is money, or the presumption of it indirectly (certain jobs, etc) Or else we just call it pursing our natural hobbies and interests. You don't need to go to school for that. If you didn't need more money you wouldn't seek the accreditation.
- pinko 2y ago
  In many disciplines, it is almost impossible to get oneself into an environment anywhere remotely as rich in collective expertise, resources, and academic-social interaction as a proper graduate research program. There are exceptions (e.g., aspects of tech where money can be made, aspects of social science that intersect with public policy or activism, etc.) but they are rare.
  - DrFalkyn 2y ago
    In my experience Academia lacks the resources that corporations can give you. This has been a big problem in AI. The transformers guys probably could not have pulled that off at a university.
  - xanderlewis 2y ago
    You're exactly right. The ill-informed commenters here seem to think everything is about 'AI' and 'tech'. Of course you don't need a PhD to publish bullshit experiments on language models and unwarranted pontification — but try becoming a serious pure mathematician without a PhD. But I guess the retort of the average tech bro HNer will be something like: 'we don't need pure mathematicians — just learn Rust and you'll make way more money'.
- lazyasciiart 2y ago
  Some people study things that require actual equipment. People who have the money to run a nuclear physics lab in their house are very rare.
- globalnode 2y ago
  I would assume there would be more structure and outside requirements to a phd than a hobby. More feedback and more requirements in general to do things you wouldn't do as part of a free form hobby where you could just avoid the undesirable aspects.
- deleted 2y ago
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- dgacmu 2y ago
  Nah. The difference is one of (learning) rigor. Intellectual and scientific. You learn a lot in the process of getting a Ph.D. about how to think, how to analyze, and how to research.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    That sounds awfully generic. It doesn't sound that different from a Master's (heck, maybe even an undergrad) program that requires a thesis. Yes, there's a difference in the sense of supposedly doing novel research, but I'm not sure the degree to which you're theoretically moving the state of the art forward justifies your time investment in many cases.
    - sno129 2y ago
      I'm assuming you don't have a Ph.D. if it sounds generic to you. I think it's really impossible to explain to somebody who hasn't gone through it how much a Ph.D. changes the way you think. Whether it's worth the time investment is another matter, however, which I'll leave alone.
      - adastra22 2y ago
        The change isn’t unique to a PhD though. Plenty of people receive similar or better training in industry.
        Ekaros 2y ago
        I hope that most people change after 5, 10 and 20 years of experience in industry and think in different ways than when they started...
    - dgacmu 2y ago
      It's a matter of degree. A _typical_ undergrad thesis is more spoon-fed from the perspective of "here's the idea, go do it". A typical masters project is still more advisor-generated than student-generated. A typical Ph.D. project is more student-generated than advisor-generated in many cases. Please add copious "not all"s to this paragraph as the variance is extremely high and everyone's case is unique. And the rigor expected increases substantially. Again, generally. The major thing of a Ph.D. isn't really how much it moves the state of the art forward, it's how much it moves you forward. You will almost certainly approach research and your area fundamentally differently after. That's true for me as well as a professor with respect to research: I'm pretty convinced that my largest contribution is the Ph.D. students I've mentored more than the chunks of research I've done. I'm proud of the research. But I'm more proud of the students. They've gone on to do wonderful things. The thing it hangs on is "justifies" - financially, a Ph.D. in CS is hard to "justify." Intellectually, it's easy. Depends a lot on your individual utility function! I could have dropped out of my Ph.D. program to go be a pre-IPO employee at Google or Akamai and, ah, let's say that my financial picture would have a few extra zeros on it compared to where I am now. :-) But I'm really glad I didn't. It's been a very fun journey and I've never felt like I'm just doing the routine. That's worth a lot for me.
- michaelt 2y ago
  Sure - it's just a hobby that pays money. That and the library access, and the fact that you don't have to fit it in around a job, obviously. Kinda goes without saying. And you get a supervisor who might point you in the right direction and keep you on track - but I'm sure you barely need that! Of course the equipment access and technician support goes without saying. Not like anyone else is going to be letting you use their scanning electron microscope for free. Having peers working alongside you who share your values of intellectual curiosity, working in the same field and who are your equals academically is also of little to no importance - who needs 'em? There's the international travel for conferences, but really that's pretty burdensome. I for one don't want to traipse through airports and mess up my routine just to have conversations with world-leading experts on my topic of interest; I'd rather be at home relaxing. I can't imagine anyone would be drawn to the 50% female working environment, with hundreds of smart, beautiful single women aged 18-22. Who gives a shit about that? Barely even a benefit really. Other than the intellectual curiosity, the pay, the library and journal access, the time it gives you to study, the supervision, the equipment and technicians, the peers, the international travel, and all the young women - what have the Romans ever done for us?
  - kevinsync 2y ago
    All incredible points, but academia still doesn't appeal to people like me in the slightest. The hierarchy, the bureaucracy, the various costs, the unreliable supposed rewards, none of it was even remotely appealing enough to do an undergraduate, let alone a masters and then a PhD. Funny thing is, the hierarchy, the bureaucracy, the various costs, the unreliable supposed rewards, related to industries of technology, art, music, culture, essentially the exact same environment, did and do, and I've happily paid (in money, blood, sweat and tears) to participate in those. I wonder what it is exactly that makes the same exact thing appealing wearing one outfit versus the other. I feel like if we can solve that, we can restore some kind of respect for and desire for "academia", which seems like it's very much fallen out of vogue in culture lately.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      I used to think that, money aside, I'd be interested in a PhD in whatever subject. But really, I can buy the library access at my alma mater for a trivial sum. And, were I in the city, I could access a ton of the other stuff too. No, not the labs for the fields that require them for the most part--or generally discussion seminars, but there's a lot you can access for free-ish if you work at it.
- dullcrisp 2y ago
  If you want to be reductionist, the only difference between eating at a restaurant and cooking at home is money (and also that they’re fundamentally different things). That doesn’t mean that people do one or the other for purely financial reasons. Also is it still a PhD by your definition if you pay tuition? Or only if you’re paid a stipend?
bsder 2y ago
> It doesn’t even seem to occur to people that one might pursue a doctoral degree because one is interested in the subject and wants to do research. What people are, quite rightly, pointing out about getting a PhD is the "will live in poverty for a decade+ with better odds of winning the lottery than getting a tenured position to do research". Even if you want to do research, you have to eat, too.
- jltsiren 2y ago
  The actual chances of getting a tenured position (or another permanent academic position with research opportunities) are more like 1 in 3, or even better. Most people who get a PhD and are in priciple interested in staying in the academia leave, because they are not willing to make the necessary choices. And the biggest reason why people leave is not the pay, the stress, the politics, the struggle for grants, the publish-or-perish mentality, or whatever else people are complaining about. It's the forced relocation. You can choose where you live, or you can try to get an academic job, but you can't reasonably expect both. Universities are wherever they are, and their needs for new faculty are unpredictable and highly specific. If you are not prepared to drop everything else indefinitely and move to a place that is actually willing to hire someone like you, you are not serious about staying in the academia. It turns out most people are not that career-oriented.
  - cageface 2y ago
    When I was in graduate school the chances of getting a tenured position weren't anywhere close to 1 in 3. Where are you getting that number?
    - jltsiren 2y ago
      Roughly speaking, there are 10-20 PhDs for every faculty position. But not every PhD wants a faculty position, even in principle. Many want to do research in the industry, or in public research labs. Many do a PhD because it opens doors in other careers, such as medicine or education. Some PhDs are hobby projects people do in retirement. Some are side projects for people who want to study something relevant to their main job (those are quite common in social sciences). Then there are those who actually want a career in the academia. But many of them are not trying seriously, because they restrict their job search to a single city / region / country. The 1 in 3 chance is for those who are flexible enough and committed enough and accept the realities of the academic job market.
yoyohello13 2y ago
> From the discussion here, it seems that HN turns out to be a very money-centric place. Somewhat surprising. Lol! Are you new here? Y-combinator is literally about selling your soul to VC.
- Mistletoe 2y ago
  I'm slowly, very slowly, realizing this and that my objections to this are quite literally pissing into the wind to the wrong crowd. Begging and pleading for people to make tech that doesn't torture and depress the average user seems to just fall upon deaf ears, because all that ever mattered to them was the money.
  - musicale 2y ago
    > Begging and pleading for people to make tech that doesn't torture and depress the average user seems to just fall upon deaf ears, because all that ever mattered to them was the money. I think there are some people on HN who care about other things than money. I've seen a number of references here to encrapification and the rot economy, noting that chasing unlimited growth seems to lead to harmful, anti-social technology businesses.
    - firstlunchables 2y ago
      Enshittification.
    - immibis 2y ago
      They often get flagged, though.
  - yoyohello13 2y ago
    I hear you. I come here because there are often interesting articles about new tech coming out. But reading the comments around here really depresses me sometimes. This is the last bit of social media I consume these days, but it’s probably best for my mental health to stop HN too.
  - 2y ago
__loam 2y ago
PhD students are not paid a fair wage for their labor. Even if you like the subject and don't care about the money, you're putting yourself in an abusive position where you will be doing long hours for some of the worst part across "STEM".
palmotea 2y ago
> From the discussion here, it seems that HN turns out to be a very money-centric place. Somewhat surprising. Not surprising at all. It's a forum run by a VC firm populated with a decent number of people who are wannabe founders, trying to jump on the latest fad, hoping to win the startup jackpot. And (way back when it was small), I think a big part of the appeal was you could rub shoulders with some VC people and founders who actually made it. > It doesn’t even seem to occur to people that one might pursue a doctoral degree because one is interested in the subject and wants to do research. I think it does occur to people, but that's a choice for nepo babies and aspiring monks. > It’s always talked about as if getting a PhD is just another rung in a long ladder towards… earning a lot of money? Not only that — it’s apparently such an obvious fact that it’s an unacknowledged (though implicitly present) assumption in almost every comment here. I don't know about "earning a lot of money," but the whole PhD thing seems to have gotten super exploitative. Passion is one thing, but it's not a good thing to get taken advantage of. IMHO, long and difficult educational programs should be designed to guarantee a high chance of a reasonable stable and comfortable outcome.
- jvanderbot 2y ago
  I don't get it. I was neither a nepo baby or aspiring monk. What I was, was a kid from a non academic family who wanted more than my small town education could provide. I wanted to push myself to learn at a deeper level and prove it by becoming one of a different crowd of technologists. Maybe these are misguided motivations but they were undeniable and not at all about asceticism or idle riches. It was absolutely worth it.
  - brailsafe 2y ago
    Ya but, based on the brief resume in your profile, you've also probably made out quite well, no? Is that a completely incidental thing, or do you think you'd feel even a little differently if what you earned throughout your intellectual journey ended up leaving you financially vulnerable, whatever that would mean in your geographic region? To me it's a question of how much cost a person should reasonably incur in order to pursue one's interests, and I think the amount of people with absurd student loan debt and time spent, compared to their earning potential, is at meme status for millennials and zoomers. To be clear, I do think the motivations aren't inherently misguided, but they could be, and my guess is that people are taking their potential outcomes more seriously.
yieldcrv 2y ago
> It doesn’t even seem to occur to people that one might pursue a doctoral degree because one is interested in the subject and wants to do research Why is it surprising? The market is saying most people don’t have that privilege and academia is still in denial about that and completely out of touch, your surprise suggests you are… in touch? if this was a standardized test question, which you’re probably good at, you would not choose that answer Both the private and public sector have co-opted university credentials as prerequisites for employment, leading a different audience to demand and feel entitled to being accepted at universities I will give you something though: I agree this is all a mistake and the universities will outlive this 100 year folly of the plebs wanting to be there for employment, and revert to being half millennium old networking and refinement clubs for upper class children
- globalnode 2y ago
  Thats a depressing outlook. I feel the lower levels of uni have been co-opted as you say, but once you're passed the undergrad level I think it would become more about interest in the subject and less about a job, don't you think? (Sadly I may be wrong)
  - lotsoweiners 2y ago
    Lots of jobs require (or at least prefer) candidates with a masters degree at least for more senior positions. Not sure that interest is the reason why people would be going for these degrees.
  - trw55 2y ago
    This is interesting. How do you support yourself if it’s not about the money? Are you in the US? If you are have you noticed you will be paying $10 for a dozen of eggs? In what world does getting a PhD for curiosity make sense in 2025? It’s not even about money, it’s about literal survival. The people here in this thread talking about getting a PhD to satisfy an interest in a subject must have never gone to bed for dinner because if they had they’d understand why this position they’re taking doesn’t make a lick of sense.
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eli_gottlieb 2y ago
>It doesn’t even seem to occur to people that one might pursue a doctoral degree because one is interested in the subject and wants to do research. That's why I did a PhD, but of course, I'd still like some job security at the end of the pipeline. Currently a postdoc.
ckemere 2y ago
> it seems that HN turns out to be a very money-centric place Counter - I recently asked a faculty candidate how he would recruit curious, talented graduate students, and he said “I develop connections from interesting online communities like Hacker News.” I loved this answer because it’s consistent with my observations. HN may seem cynical but the average level of potential PhD students is higher than many alternatives!
NeutralCrane 2y ago
Cost of living and income inequality are soaring. Huge swaths of the population are living in crippling debt because they believed that it was worth it to spend tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars to go to school and learn about what interested them, only to find out it didn’t lead anywhere and they have hamstrung themselves financially for the rest of their lives. It shouldn’t be surprising that people are putting a premium on financial stability these days.
- michaelt 2y ago
  HN has been like this forever, it's not a recent thing. When the tech job market and startup ecosystem is weak, HN will say you shouldn't do a PhD because of the cost of living and the worrying job market once you get out. When the tech job market and startup ecosystem is strong, HN will say you shouldn't do a PhD because of the opportunity cost and the attractive job market that'll pay six figures to anyone with a pulse.
  - melagonster 2y ago
    Obviously, this is because computer science offers many interesting jobs. But in other regions, these jobs are hidden after Phd.
  - xp84 2y ago
    And neither is a controversial take, especially for most technologists. Even those who love learning for its own sake will probably find it fulfilling to learn on the job provided they can get a job in a research-oriented company in the niche that interests them, and earning six figures a year instead of paying nearly as much for the privilege of doing menial labor in a doctoral program is certainly attractive. I have no hate for PhDs or aspiring ones, but I can't relate to someone who would brush past either of those two arguments you cited without some very strong counterarguments on how they will work out supporting themselves and paying back those enormous loans.
    - aleph_minus_one 2y ago
      > Even those who love learning for its own sake will probably find it fulfilling to learn on the job provided they can get a job in a research-oriented company in the niche that interests them The assumption that you'll be able to find such a job is exactly the big question mark.
darkhorse222 2y ago
It's a bit like being a teacher. You get paid terrible money which is not an abstract thing, that has a real life impact. And you have to deal with the politics of academia, which is like the politics of industry but with less leverage to you. It's just not a great win in any way unless your main thing in life is your job being your main intellectual stimulant.
ocschwar 2y ago
"It doesn’t even seem to occur to people that one might pursue a doctoral degree because one is interested in the subject and wants to do research. " Frankly, no. Because as beautiful as that concept is, it's 6 years in your younger decades, where the magic of compound interest makes every dollar you save or spend count a lot more than any money you make later in life. Add tuition and loans, also with compound interest, and well, I have no resentment against people from wealthy enough backgrounds that they can just do this. If that's how want to use your privileged background, nothing but respect from me. But 99% of us have to consider the money.
- fooker 2y ago
  > Add tuition and loans There are no tutions and loans for a PhD. It's free. Additionaly, you earn a small salary that can be bumped up to the median wage with internships. Imagine spending your twenties without financial obligations, working on one problem you love without it having to make a business sense.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    In some fields, possibly. I will absolutely not argue that you should do whatever will make you the most money. But just as absolutely, a PhD isn't the right answer for a lot of people. I thought about it at various points and it wouldn't have been the right choice for me even taking money out of the equation.
  - ocschwar 2y ago
    I would have loved it. NO doubt.
- MVissers 2y ago
  You could say the same about doing a startup. They pay is shit, grueling hours and 90% of them don't amount to anything meaningful. Doesn't mean that it's not worth it for most. Some people just want to do science. Or startups.
janalsncm 2y ago
> HN turns out to be a very money-centric place In defense of being money centric, we are not talking about yachts and drugs level money. To me, money means buying a house, starting a family, taking care of my parents, looking after my own health, and overall stability. These are the hallmarks of what used to be a middle class lifestyle in America. If people are getting PhDs to earn more money long term, these are also not people who intend to live lavishly. It only seems exceptional because almost every other avenue to previously “normal” life has been closed off. There’s nothing wrong with studying something because you’re interested in it. But for me, it would’ve likely meant foregoing the above.
- interludead 2y ago
  Exactly this. Wanting financial stability isn't the same as being "money-centric" in some greedy or extravagant way. A PhD used to be a reasonable path to a stable career, but for many, it no longer is.
- xp84 2y ago
  So insightful. The cost of education skyrocketing, alone, has changed the equation, to where it's a huge risk to take on enough debt to complete an advanced degree. A lot of Millenials and Gen-Z didn't get this memo, and still got overeducated - this could mean any degree in a field that doesn't pay well or doesn't generate many jobs. To the extent the degree wasn't financed it's not that big a deal. At least they got to learn something! Now they'll just have to try to work their way up slowly. But take a person who can't find a job that pays much more than retail, and put them $150,000 in debt... that person is not going to be happy.
guywithahat 2y ago
I would argue it’s not about making money, it’s about adding value. A PhD for the sake of a PhD is more like a vacation, and so most people won’t want to take a 5-year vacation
darth_avocado 2y ago
> From the discussion here, it seems that HN turns out to be a very money centric place. It’s not HN. It’s the fact that doing PHD is only a reasonable choice if you either want to get into academia long term or you come from wealth. (Historically science and research was a rich people thing, and only became accessible once student loans were more accessible) I genuinely considered doing PhD after my Masters degree. No matter what I couldn’t justify spending 5 more years, borrowing more money on top of my tens of thousands of student loans just to stay afloat. I would still be living roommates well into my 30s, have no prospects when it came to dating, rely on student loans and my parents to support me, while literally any job I did would put me in a better position. Like I could bartend full time and I’d be making more money than the stipend. All of this in the hopes of what? That I’d have a dissertation in super specialized field, not necessarily the one I want in because I won’t have the advisor I need and the one I have only wants me to do very specific things they want. And that dissertation may or may not be relevant to the industry or even academia in a year or two. And if you decide after your PhD, that you’ll join the industry, you’ve lost out on 5 years of compounded growth financially and personally. It’s not like a PhD gets you more money in 95% of the jobs. Realistically, the only people with me who ended up committing to doing this were people who had no other prospects or were looking for a full time role in academia.
- jajko 2y ago
  > And if you decide after your PhD, that you’ll join the industry, you’ve lost out on 5 years of compounded growth financially and personally. It’s not like a PhD gets you more money in 95% of the jobs. 5 years of professional experience beat a phd title in 98-99% of IT job searches, no question there. I would even more deeply probe such a candidate for good personality match with rest of the team and company overall, ie sometimes one has to suck it up and do non-ideal solution instead of having endless discussions about ideal one. And IMHO folks form academia are sometimes tad too idealistic and need additional 'baby-sitting', pushing them even further into junior less-ideal box. Smart alone is mostly meaningless when not harnessed efficiently.
  - aleph_minus_one 2y ago
fastball 2y ago
You don't need to pursue a PhD to do research, which I think underlies some of the pushback. If you don't care about the credentials or being an career academic, a doctoral program can add a lot of friction for little benefit if the only motivator is passion for the subject.
- xanderlewis 2y ago
  > You don't need to pursue a PhD to do research ...in some subjects (particularly those that are popular here on HN). Not in general. Be careful with such sweeping statements.
  - fastball 2y ago
    What is one subject you need to be doing a PhD in order to research the subject?
    - xanderlewis 2y ago
      Pure mathematics. There's virtually no one who does (genuinely important) research who doesn't have a PhD. And those who do manage to tend to contribute to relatively more accessible fields like combinatorics or things that can be filed under 'recreational mathematics'.
      - fastball 2y ago
        Lot of weasel words in there. "Virtually no one" and "genuinely important" stick out. You also say that these people have a PhD, not that they did the genuinely important research when they were getting their PhD. The people doing research having PhDs does not mean you need one to do the research, and you are helping to demonstrate that. Even for the specific field you chose, you needed to add a bunch of caveats in order for your stance to be at all accurate. This shouldn't even need to be said, but many (most?) of the greatest mathematicians in history did not have PhDs.
        2y ago
shae 2y ago
I love doing research on subjects that excite me, but I found that joining a PhD program would mean I would only get to work on what my advisor found exciting. If you get lucky and find a PI that is interested in exactly the same thing, you're good. You might get lucky enough to find someone who is interested in something near what you want. Most likely, you will be assigned the thing you do for your PhD.
- xanderlewis 2y ago
  > joining a PhD program would mean I would only get to work on what my advisor found exciting. No, it wouldn't. > Most likely, you will be assigned the thing you do for your PhD. Sometimes. Often not.
aqueueaqueue 2y ago
Life is expensive. I feel like you have to nail it financially to simply have a good life. It is not about the Ferraris.
__rito__ 2y ago
Forget money and being rich. What about a decent stable life where you are not struggling, and actually can start a family before turning, say, 35? I don't think it can be supported by academia anymore. I just don't want to go through 5-10 years of PhD, then two postdocs, and then start a job that is by no means tenured. And PhD isn't really a place for satiating your unfettered, unhinged curiosity. You have to do research along your advisor's line of inquiry, look at funding prospects, churn out papers at a cutthroat pace, and then deal with politics. Also, you can somewhat easily change a job, but cannot switch advisors that easily. Switching institutions is considerably harder. If you want a FAANG job, you can get that without a PhD. And earn much more by the time your PhD were to be finished if you didn't go for it. EE and CS are fields where you can do your research on your own if you are genuinely curious. Maybe, you won't have a career as a researcher. But you also won't be with a thinning hairline, single, and far from financial indepence at 33.
- xanderlewis 2y ago
  > What about a decent stable life where you are not struggling, and actually can start a family before turning, say, 35? I suspect you are an American who doesn't know much about the outside world. Here in the UK, for example, you can finish a PhD in three years (so you could be around 25!). > And PhD isn't really a place for satiating your unfettered, unhinged curiosity. Try stopping me! Seriously. > You have to do research along your advisor's line of inquiry, look at funding prospects, churn out papers at a cutthroat pace, and then deal with politics. This is simply not true in general. Perhaps it's true in the more woolly, fashion and politics-driven disciplines. > If you want a FAANG job, you can get that without a PhD. I mean, no shit... > at 33. Again — I don't know where this idea that a PhD takes '5-10 years' comes from. It's nonsense.
grandempire 2y ago
You can do a PhD for fun and interest. But if you’re trying to get an academic career m, you better leave the idealism at the door. You are playing a serious game as any corporate politics.
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interludead 2y ago
Interest in research and intellectual curiosity are great motivators, but they don't pay rent. The problem isn't that people expect a PhD to be a path to riches. It's that in many places, it barely provides a livable income at all
arkh 2y ago
> because one is interested in the subject and wants to do research Then you need a stable situation first. Not everyone can choose to spend years badly paid while accruing debt from tuition and renting in a high cost area. You read like a privileged person who comes from money or won the lottery.
zeroq 2y ago
I agree with the sentiment, but on the other hand, as someone who made some dubious career choices in his life I'll tell you that I really regret that no one told me to treat my life as a video game and plan out how to spend my points on the skill tree. I always thought I was lucky because I was into computers and was able to do what I actually enjoyed, but when I look back I don't think working for Wikia for $850 a month was the best choice I could have made.
__MatrixMan__ 2y ago
These here are hackers who sold out, or would like to. If you figure out where the principled hackers hang out, do let me know.
rightbyte 2y ago
> From the discussion here, it seems that HN turns out to be a very money-centric place. Somewhat surprising. It has always been heavy on Silicon Valley (legal) hustler types? Even more earlier. Concerning startups most seems disillusioned about the prospects nowadays.
dr_dshiv 2y ago
A lot of people pursue PhDs because they are good at school and are highly trained to “jump through the next hoop.” Not to be dismissive, because career academics are important. But there is an unnecessary anxiety for many about leaving school and entering the workforce. I think one attraction is also: “wow, I can get paid to continue my education?” Academia is like universal basic income for the highly intelligent. It’s a good system, overall and I think it will have a strong future. But it is not a good way to build wealth. That said, the freedom it provides can make a PhD a great place to start a business, start a family, etc. But, it requires bravery and self direction, because it certainly won’t steer you there.
gosub100 2y ago
My experience with college was that it was a very "money centric place", with the high rates of tuition, over paid bureaucrats, yet course instruction outsourced to grad students "working" for low hourly wages. Further, there was an "unacknowledged (though implicitly present) assumption" that faculty were in the business of bringing in grant money, and he who didn't wouldn't last long. Then in the last few years we came to learn that much of the "academics" that gets published today is completely bogus. What subject are those "researchers" interested in?
rob_c 2y ago
Given the cost of taking 4+ years of your life to train under someone learning a skill, yes, there's a huge financial risk in doing this. If you're able to ignore that fantastic, great for you and I hope you're happy, but even fully funded positions have just enough money to cover the minimum length of a PhD. To get the most from it chances are you will either end up with minor debt or wipe out some savings. Unfortunately such is life. IMO the goal of the PhD shouldn't be to think of a city job as a high frequency trader at the end, but that's my worldview that why spend X years studying in a field of you don't intend to follow it... Chances are if you say that during an interview for a place, unless it's in studying high frequency trading you won't get a call back.
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FrustratedMonky 2y ago
" might pursue a doctoral degree because one is interested in the subject and wants to do research" Dude, you got-a eat.
- xanderlewis 2y ago
  Yes. That's why funding exists.
  - FrustratedMonky 2y ago
    The parent was making the argument that the 'drive to find truth', or 'knowledge' should out way petty material concerns. Implying that paying PhD's less is a-ok because they work for a higher purpose.
vishnugupta 2y ago
PhD is a really big investment. You are spending 4-6 years of your prime earning years chasing a dream or in the hope of making a dent in your domain’s problems. All that while your age mates from school/college/town are progressing in their life and career. Also if you get into non-academic job then those early years foregone usually have disproportionately bigger impact on your career progression and your accumulated wealth. The decision is really big one and it’s only natural to consider money angle. I’ve known quite a few get into it because of interest and then getting disillusioned as they watch the world pass them by.
- StefanBatory 2y ago
  It's why I wouldn't want to pursue PhD. (besides simply knowing I'm not cut out for research). I don't want to spend even more years in education. I want to still use my youth while I can; going into PhD would make me unable to.
entropi 2y ago
Most of us do need to work for a living. Researching for the sake of research, and learning purely because one is interested in the subject is nice and all, but it is a luxury few can afford. I think it is beneficial for everyone that the money angle for PhD is openly discussed and made public. This way, the correct audience (those who don't need to work for a living, i.e. born rich) might be attracted instead of burning out middle/lower class youth with dreams. ...Or steps can be taken to change PhD programs. Which does not seem likely.
herval 2y ago
It feels like YC population these days is mostly employees of mid-to-large tech companies trying to get rich out of RSUs. It used to be more about founders and wannabe founders, but the attitude shifted through the years to a mix of cynical money-grabbing attitude, so it's unsurprising that anything that doesn't mean "higher TC" is unpopular (except for side projects involving hardware, for some reason)
- xanderlewis 2y ago
  It's supposed to be populated by hackers (in the general sense). But it certainly isn't now — if it ever was.
Gollapalli 2y ago
I wanted to do exactly this, and was told many many times to rethink it.
- xanderlewis 2y ago
  And you listened? Stop listening.
  - Gollapalli 2y ago
    They made good points and I made a call. I still think I made the right one.
    - xanderlewis 2y ago
      You can never really know. I'd rather take a chance and know I got it wrong than never take the chance and never know I got it right.
xanderlewis 2y ago
Conclusion: sorry, but you all seem to be a gang of miserable, jaded, nihilistic, incurious, what's-in-it-for-me bastards. I hope aspiring PhD students don't take any of this nonsense too seriously. I don't think I read a single first-hand account in this whole thread; just a lot of whining, hearsay, entirely made up bollocks, and a hell of a lot of chips on shoulders.

declan_roberts 2y ago

The only difference between a PhD and a hobby is money, or the presumption of it indirectly (certain jobs, etc) Or else we just call it pursing our natural hobbies and interests. You don't need to go to school for that. If you didn't need more money you wouldn't seek the accreditation.

pinko 2y ago
In many disciplines, it is almost impossible to get oneself into an environment anywhere remotely as rich in collective expertise, resources, and academic-social interaction as a proper graduate research program. There are exceptions (e.g., aspects of tech where money can be made, aspects of social science that intersect with public policy or activism, etc.) but they are rare.
- DrFalkyn 2y ago
  In my experience Academia lacks the resources that corporations can give you. This has been a big problem in AI. The transformers guys probably could not have pulled that off at a university.
- xanderlewis 2y ago
  You're exactly right. The ill-informed commenters here seem to think everything is about 'AI' and 'tech'. Of course you don't need a PhD to publish bullshit experiments on language models and unwarranted pontification — but try becoming a serious pure mathematician without a PhD. But I guess the retort of the average tech bro HNer will be something like: 'we don't need pure mathematicians — just learn Rust and you'll make way more money'.
lazyasciiart 2y ago
Some people study things that require actual equipment. People who have the money to run a nuclear physics lab in their house are very rare.
globalnode 2y ago
I would assume there would be more structure and outside requirements to a phd than a hobby. More feedback and more requirements in general to do things you wouldn't do as part of a free form hobby where you could just avoid the undesirable aspects.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
dgacmu 2y ago
Nah. The difference is one of (learning) rigor. Intellectual and scientific. You learn a lot in the process of getting a Ph.D. about how to think, how to analyze, and how to research.
- ghaff 2y ago
  That sounds awfully generic. It doesn't sound that different from a Master's (heck, maybe even an undergrad) program that requires a thesis. Yes, there's a difference in the sense of supposedly doing novel research, but I'm not sure the degree to which you're theoretically moving the state of the art forward justifies your time investment in many cases.
  - sno129 2y ago
    I'm assuming you don't have a Ph.D. if it sounds generic to you. I think it's really impossible to explain to somebody who hasn't gone through it how much a Ph.D. changes the way you think. Whether it's worth the time investment is another matter, however, which I'll leave alone.
    - adastra22 2y ago
      The change isn’t unique to a PhD though. Plenty of people receive similar or better training in industry.
      - Ekaros 2y ago
        I hope that most people change after 5, 10 and 20 years of experience in industry and think in different ways than when they started...
  - dgacmu 2y ago
    It's a matter of degree. A _typical_ undergrad thesis is more spoon-fed from the perspective of "here's the idea, go do it". A typical masters project is still more advisor-generated than student-generated. A typical Ph.D. project is more student-generated than advisor-generated in many cases. Please add copious "not all"s to this paragraph as the variance is extremely high and everyone's case is unique. And the rigor expected increases substantially. Again, generally. The major thing of a Ph.D. isn't really how much it moves the state of the art forward, it's how much it moves you forward. You will almost certainly approach research and your area fundamentally differently after. That's true for me as well as a professor with respect to research: I'm pretty convinced that my largest contribution is the Ph.D. students I've mentored more than the chunks of research I've done. I'm proud of the research. But I'm more proud of the students. They've gone on to do wonderful things. The thing it hangs on is "justifies" - financially, a Ph.D. in CS is hard to "justify." Intellectually, it's easy. Depends a lot on your individual utility function! I could have dropped out of my Ph.D. program to go be a pre-IPO employee at Google or Akamai and, ah, let's say that my financial picture would have a few extra zeros on it compared to where I am now. :-) But I'm really glad I didn't. It's been a very fun journey and I've never felt like I'm just doing the routine. That's worth a lot for me.
michaelt 2y ago
Sure - it's just a hobby that pays money. That and the library access, and the fact that you don't have to fit it in around a job, obviously. Kinda goes without saying. And you get a supervisor who might point you in the right direction and keep you on track - but I'm sure you barely need that! Of course the equipment access and technician support goes without saying. Not like anyone else is going to be letting you use their scanning electron microscope for free. Having peers working alongside you who share your values of intellectual curiosity, working in the same field and who are your equals academically is also of little to no importance - who needs 'em? There's the international travel for conferences, but really that's pretty burdensome. I for one don't want to traipse through airports and mess up my routine just to have conversations with world-leading experts on my topic of interest; I'd rather be at home relaxing. I can't imagine anyone would be drawn to the 50% female working environment, with hundreds of smart, beautiful single women aged 18-22. Who gives a shit about that? Barely even a benefit really. Other than the intellectual curiosity, the pay, the library and journal access, the time it gives you to study, the supervision, the equipment and technicians, the peers, the international travel, and all the young women - what have the Romans ever done for us?
- kevinsync 2y ago
  All incredible points, but academia still doesn't appeal to people like me in the slightest. The hierarchy, the bureaucracy, the various costs, the unreliable supposed rewards, none of it was even remotely appealing enough to do an undergraduate, let alone a masters and then a PhD. Funny thing is, the hierarchy, the bureaucracy, the various costs, the unreliable supposed rewards, related to industries of technology, art, music, culture, essentially the exact same environment, did and do, and I've happily paid (in money, blood, sweat and tears) to participate in those. I wonder what it is exactly that makes the same exact thing appealing wearing one outfit versus the other. I feel like if we can solve that, we can restore some kind of respect for and desire for "academia", which seems like it's very much fallen out of vogue in culture lately.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    I used to think that, money aside, I'd be interested in a PhD in whatever subject. But really, I can buy the library access at my alma mater for a trivial sum. And, were I in the city, I could access a ton of the other stuff too. No, not the labs for the fields that require them for the most part--or generally discussion seminars, but there's a lot you can access for free-ish if you work at it.
dullcrisp 2y ago
If you want to be reductionist, the only difference between eating at a restaurant and cooking at home is money (and also that they’re fundamentally different things). That doesn’t mean that people do one or the other for purely financial reasons. Also is it still a PhD by your definition if you pay tuition? Or only if you’re paid a stipend?

bsder 2y ago

> It doesn’t even seem to occur to people that one might pursue a doctoral degree because one is interested in the subject and wants to do research. What people are, quite rightly, pointing out about getting a PhD is the "will live in poverty for a decade+ with better odds of winning the lottery than getting a tenured position to do research". Even if you want to do research, you have to eat, too.

jltsiren 2y ago
The actual chances of getting a tenured position (or another permanent academic position with research opportunities) are more like 1 in 3, or even better. Most people who get a PhD and are in priciple interested in staying in the academia leave, because they are not willing to make the necessary choices. And the biggest reason why people leave is not the pay, the stress, the politics, the struggle for grants, the publish-or-perish mentality, or whatever else people are complaining about. It's the forced relocation. You can choose where you live, or you can try to get an academic job, but you can't reasonably expect both. Universities are wherever they are, and their needs for new faculty are unpredictable and highly specific. If you are not prepared to drop everything else indefinitely and move to a place that is actually willing to hire someone like you, you are not serious about staying in the academia. It turns out most people are not that career-oriented.
- cageface 2y ago
  When I was in graduate school the chances of getting a tenured position weren't anywhere close to 1 in 3. Where are you getting that number?
  - jltsiren 2y ago
    Roughly speaking, there are 10-20 PhDs for every faculty position. But not every PhD wants a faculty position, even in principle. Many want to do research in the industry, or in public research labs. Many do a PhD because it opens doors in other careers, such as medicine or education. Some PhDs are hobby projects people do in retirement. Some are side projects for people who want to study something relevant to their main job (those are quite common in social sciences). Then there are those who actually want a career in the academia. But many of them are not trying seriously, because they restrict their job search to a single city / region / country. The 1 in 3 chance is for those who are flexible enough and committed enough and accept the realities of the academic job market.

yoyohello13 2y ago

> From the discussion here, it seems that HN turns out to be a very money-centric place. Somewhat surprising. Lol! Are you new here? Y-combinator is literally about selling your soul to VC.

Mistletoe 2y ago
I'm slowly, very slowly, realizing this and that my objections to this are quite literally pissing into the wind to the wrong crowd. Begging and pleading for people to make tech that doesn't torture and depress the average user seems to just fall upon deaf ears, because all that ever mattered to them was the money.
- musicale 2y ago
  > Begging and pleading for people to make tech that doesn't torture and depress the average user seems to just fall upon deaf ears, because all that ever mattered to them was the money. I think there are some people on HN who care about other things than money. I've seen a number of references here to encrapification and the rot economy, noting that chasing unlimited growth seems to lead to harmful, anti-social technology businesses.
  - firstlunchables 2y ago
    Enshittification.
  - immibis 2y ago
    They often get flagged, though.
- yoyohello13 2y ago
  I hear you. I come here because there are often interesting articles about new tech coming out. But reading the comments around here really depresses me sometimes. This is the last bit of social media I consume these days, but it’s probably best for my mental health to stop HN too.
- 2y ago

__loam 2y ago

PhD students are not paid a fair wage for their labor. Even if you like the subject and don't care about the money, you're putting yourself in an abusive position where you will be doing long hours for some of the worst part across "STEM".

palmotea 2y ago

> From the discussion here, it seems that HN turns out to be a very money-centric place. Somewhat surprising. Not surprising at all. It's a forum run by a VC firm populated with a decent number of people who are wannabe founders, trying to jump on the latest fad, hoping to win the startup jackpot. And (way back when it was small), I think a big part of the appeal was you could rub shoulders with some VC people and founders who actually made it. > It doesn’t even seem to occur to people that one might pursue a doctoral degree because one is interested in the subject and wants to do research. I think it does occur to people, but that's a choice for nepo babies and aspiring monks. > It’s always talked about as if getting a PhD is just another rung in a long ladder towards… earning a lot of money? Not only that — it’s apparently such an obvious fact that it’s an unacknowledged (though implicitly present) assumption in almost every comment here. I don't know about "earning a lot of money," but the whole PhD thing seems to have gotten super exploitative. Passion is one thing, but it's not a good thing to get taken advantage of. IMHO, long and difficult educational programs should be designed to guarantee a high chance of a reasonable stable and comfortable outcome.

jvanderbot 2y ago
I don't get it. I was neither a nepo baby or aspiring monk. What I was, was a kid from a non academic family who wanted more than my small town education could provide. I wanted to push myself to learn at a deeper level and prove it by becoming one of a different crowd of technologists. Maybe these are misguided motivations but they were undeniable and not at all about asceticism or idle riches. It was absolutely worth it.
- brailsafe 2y ago
  Ya but, based on the brief resume in your profile, you've also probably made out quite well, no? Is that a completely incidental thing, or do you think you'd feel even a little differently if what you earned throughout your intellectual journey ended up leaving you financially vulnerable, whatever that would mean in your geographic region? To me it's a question of how much cost a person should reasonably incur in order to pursue one's interests, and I think the amount of people with absurd student loan debt and time spent, compared to their earning potential, is at meme status for millennials and zoomers. To be clear, I do think the motivations aren't inherently misguided, but they could be, and my guess is that people are taking their potential outcomes more seriously.

yieldcrv 2y ago

> It doesn’t even seem to occur to people that one might pursue a doctoral degree because one is interested in the subject and wants to do research Why is it surprising? The market is saying most people don’t have that privilege and academia is still in denial about that and completely out of touch, your surprise suggests you are… in touch? if this was a standardized test question, which you’re probably good at, you would not choose that answer Both the private and public sector have co-opted university credentials as prerequisites for employment, leading a different audience to demand and feel entitled to being accepted at universities I will give you something though: I agree this is all a mistake and the universities will outlive this 100 year folly of the plebs wanting to be there for employment, and revert to being half millennium old networking and refinement clubs for upper class children

globalnode 2y ago
Thats a depressing outlook. I feel the lower levels of uni have been co-opted as you say, but once you're passed the undergrad level I think it would become more about interest in the subject and less about a job, don't you think? (Sadly I may be wrong)
- lotsoweiners 2y ago
  Lots of jobs require (or at least prefer) candidates with a masters degree at least for more senior positions. Not sure that interest is the reason why people would be going for these degrees.
- trw55 2y ago
  This is interesting. How do you support yourself if it’s not about the money? Are you in the US? If you are have you noticed you will be paying $10 for a dozen of eggs? In what world does getting a PhD for curiosity make sense in 2025? It’s not even about money, it’s about literal survival. The people here in this thread talking about getting a PhD to satisfy an interest in a subject must have never gone to bed for dinner because if they had they’d understand why this position they’re taking doesn’t make a lick of sense.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

eli_gottlieb 2y ago

>It doesn’t even seem to occur to people that one might pursue a doctoral degree because one is interested in the subject and wants to do research. That's why I did a PhD, but of course, I'd still like some job security at the end of the pipeline. Currently a postdoc.

ckemere 2y ago

> it seems that HN turns out to be a very money-centric place Counter - I recently asked a faculty candidate how he would recruit curious, talented graduate students, and he said “I develop connections from interesting online communities like Hacker News.” I loved this answer because it’s consistent with my observations. HN may seem cynical but the average level of potential PhD students is higher than many alternatives!

NeutralCrane 2y ago

Cost of living and income inequality are soaring. Huge swaths of the population are living in crippling debt because they believed that it was worth it to spend tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars to go to school and learn about what interested them, only to find out it didn’t lead anywhere and they have hamstrung themselves financially for the rest of their lives. It shouldn’t be surprising that people are putting a premium on financial stability these days.

michaelt 2y ago
HN has been like this forever, it's not a recent thing. When the tech job market and startup ecosystem is weak, HN will say you shouldn't do a PhD because of the cost of living and the worrying job market once you get out. When the tech job market and startup ecosystem is strong, HN will say you shouldn't do a PhD because of the opportunity cost and the attractive job market that'll pay six figures to anyone with a pulse.
- melagonster 2y ago
  Obviously, this is because computer science offers many interesting jobs. But in other regions, these jobs are hidden after Phd.
- xp84 2y ago
  And neither is a controversial take, especially for most technologists. Even those who love learning for its own sake will probably find it fulfilling to learn on the job provided they can get a job in a research-oriented company in the niche that interests them, and earning six figures a year instead of paying nearly as much for the privilege of doing menial labor in a doctoral program is certainly attractive. I have no hate for PhDs or aspiring ones, but I can't relate to someone who would brush past either of those two arguments you cited without some very strong counterarguments on how they will work out supporting themselves and paying back those enormous loans.
  - aleph_minus_one 2y ago
    > Even those who love learning for its own sake will probably find it fulfilling to learn on the job provided they can get a job in a research-oriented company in the niche that interests them The assumption that you'll be able to find such a job is exactly the big question mark.

darkhorse222 2y ago

It's a bit like being a teacher. You get paid terrible money which is not an abstract thing, that has a real life impact. And you have to deal with the politics of academia, which is like the politics of industry but with less leverage to you. It's just not a great win in any way unless your main thing in life is your job being your main intellectual stimulant.

ocschwar 2y ago

"It doesn’t even seem to occur to people that one might pursue a doctoral degree because one is interested in the subject and wants to do research. " Frankly, no. Because as beautiful as that concept is, it's 6 years in your younger decades, where the magic of compound interest makes every dollar you save or spend count a lot more than any money you make later in life. Add tuition and loans, also with compound interest, and well, I have no resentment against people from wealthy enough backgrounds that they can just do this. If that's how want to use your privileged background, nothing but respect from me. But 99% of us have to consider the money.

fooker 2y ago
> Add tuition and loans There are no tutions and loans for a PhD. It's free. Additionaly, you earn a small salary that can be bumped up to the median wage with internships. Imagine spending your twenties without financial obligations, working on one problem you love without it having to make a business sense.
- ghaff 2y ago
  In some fields, possibly. I will absolutely not argue that you should do whatever will make you the most money. But just as absolutely, a PhD isn't the right answer for a lot of people. I thought about it at various points and it wouldn't have been the right choice for me even taking money out of the equation.
- ocschwar 2y ago
  I would have loved it. NO doubt.
MVissers 2y ago
You could say the same about doing a startup. They pay is shit, grueling hours and 90% of them don't amount to anything meaningful. Doesn't mean that it's not worth it for most. Some people just want to do science. Or startups.

janalsncm 2y ago

> HN turns out to be a very money-centric place In defense of being money centric, we are not talking about yachts and drugs level money. To me, money means buying a house, starting a family, taking care of my parents, looking after my own health, and overall stability. These are the hallmarks of what used to be a middle class lifestyle in America. If people are getting PhDs to earn more money long term, these are also not people who intend to live lavishly. It only seems exceptional because almost every other avenue to previously “normal” life has been closed off. There’s nothing wrong with studying something because you’re interested in it. But for me, it would’ve likely meant foregoing the above.

interludead 2y ago
Exactly this. Wanting financial stability isn't the same as being "money-centric" in some greedy or extravagant way. A PhD used to be a reasonable path to a stable career, but for many, it no longer is.
xp84 2y ago
So insightful. The cost of education skyrocketing, alone, has changed the equation, to where it's a huge risk to take on enough debt to complete an advanced degree. A lot of Millenials and Gen-Z didn't get this memo, and still got overeducated - this could mean any degree in a field that doesn't pay well or doesn't generate many jobs. To the extent the degree wasn't financed it's not that big a deal. At least they got to learn something! Now they'll just have to try to work their way up slowly. But take a person who can't find a job that pays much more than retail, and put them $150,000 in debt... that person is not going to be happy.

guywithahat 2y ago

I would argue it’s not about making money, it’s about adding value. A PhD for the sake of a PhD is more like a vacation, and so most people won’t want to take a 5-year vacation

darth_avocado 2y ago

> From the discussion here, it seems that HN turns out to be a very money centric place. It’s not HN. It’s the fact that doing PHD is only a reasonable choice if you either want to get into academia long term or you come from wealth. (Historically science and research was a rich people thing, and only became accessible once student loans were more accessible) I genuinely considered doing PhD after my Masters degree. No matter what I couldn’t justify spending 5 more years, borrowing more money on top of my tens of thousands of student loans just to stay afloat. I would still be living roommates well into my 30s, have no prospects when it came to dating, rely on student loans and my parents to support me, while literally any job I did would put me in a better position. Like I could bartend full time and I’d be making more money than the stipend. All of this in the hopes of what? That I’d have a dissertation in super specialized field, not necessarily the one I want in because I won’t have the advisor I need and the one I have only wants me to do very specific things they want. And that dissertation may or may not be relevant to the industry or even academia in a year or two. And if you decide after your PhD, that you’ll join the industry, you’ve lost out on 5 years of compounded growth financially and personally. It’s not like a PhD gets you more money in 95% of the jobs. Realistically, the only people with me who ended up committing to doing this were people who had no other prospects or were looking for a full time role in academia.

jajko 2y ago
> And if you decide after your PhD, that you’ll join the industry, you’ve lost out on 5 years of compounded growth financially and personally. It’s not like a PhD gets you more money in 95% of the jobs. 5 years of professional experience beat a phd title in 98-99% of IT job searches, no question there. I would even more deeply probe such a candidate for good personality match with rest of the team and company overall, ie sometimes one has to suck it up and do non-ideal solution instead of having endless discussions about ideal one. And IMHO folks form academia are sometimes tad too idealistic and need additional 'baby-sitting', pushing them even further into junior less-ideal box. Smart alone is mostly meaningless when not harnessed efficiently.
- aleph_minus_one 2y ago

fastball 2y ago

You don't need to pursue a PhD to do research, which I think underlies some of the pushback. If you don't care about the credentials or being an career academic, a doctoral program can add a lot of friction for little benefit if the only motivator is passion for the subject.

xanderlewis 2y ago
> You don't need to pursue a PhD to do research ...in some subjects (particularly those that are popular here on HN). Not in general. Be careful with such sweeping statements.
- fastball 2y ago
  What is one subject you need to be doing a PhD in order to research the subject?
  - xanderlewis 2y ago
    Pure mathematics. There's virtually no one who does (genuinely important) research who doesn't have a PhD. And those who do manage to tend to contribute to relatively more accessible fields like combinatorics or things that can be filed under 'recreational mathematics'.
    - fastball 2y ago
      Lot of weasel words in there. "Virtually no one" and "genuinely important" stick out. You also say that these people have a PhD, not that they did the genuinely important research when they were getting their PhD. The people doing research having PhDs does not mean you need one to do the research, and you are helping to demonstrate that. Even for the specific field you chose, you needed to add a bunch of caveats in order for your stance to be at all accurate. This shouldn't even need to be said, but many (most?) of the greatest mathematicians in history did not have PhDs.
      - 2y ago

shae 2y ago

I love doing research on subjects that excite me, but I found that joining a PhD program would mean I would only get to work on what my advisor found exciting. If you get lucky and find a PI that is interested in exactly the same thing, you're good. You might get lucky enough to find someone who is interested in something near what you want. Most likely, you will be assigned the thing you do for your PhD.

xanderlewis 2y ago
> joining a PhD program would mean I would only get to work on what my advisor found exciting. No, it wouldn't. > Most likely, you will be assigned the thing you do for your PhD. Sometimes. Often not.

aqueueaqueue 2y ago

Life is expensive. I feel like you have to nail it financially to simply have a good life. It is not about the Ferraris.

__rito__ 2y ago

Forget money and being rich. What about a decent stable life where you are not struggling, and actually can start a family before turning, say, 35? I don't think it can be supported by academia anymore. I just don't want to go through 5-10 years of PhD, then two postdocs, and then start a job that is by no means tenured. And PhD isn't really a place for satiating your unfettered, unhinged curiosity. You have to do research along your advisor's line of inquiry, look at funding prospects, churn out papers at a cutthroat pace, and then deal with politics. Also, you can somewhat easily change a job, but cannot switch advisors that easily. Switching institutions is considerably harder. If you want a FAANG job, you can get that without a PhD. And earn much more by the time your PhD were to be finished if you didn't go for it. EE and CS are fields where you can do your research on your own if you are genuinely curious. Maybe, you won't have a career as a researcher. But you also won't be with a thinning hairline, single, and far from financial indepence at 33.

xanderlewis 2y ago
> What about a decent stable life where you are not struggling, and actually can start a family before turning, say, 35? I suspect you are an American who doesn't know much about the outside world. Here in the UK, for example, you can finish a PhD in three years (so you could be around 25!). > And PhD isn't really a place for satiating your unfettered, unhinged curiosity. Try stopping me! Seriously. > You have to do research along your advisor's line of inquiry, look at funding prospects, churn out papers at a cutthroat pace, and then deal with politics. This is simply not true in general. Perhaps it's true in the more woolly, fashion and politics-driven disciplines. > If you want a FAANG job, you can get that without a PhD. I mean, no shit... > at 33. Again — I don't know where this idea that a PhD takes '5-10 years' comes from. It's nonsense.

grandempire 2y ago

You can do a PhD for fun and interest. But if you’re trying to get an academic career m, you better leave the idealism at the door. You are playing a serious game as any corporate politics.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

interludead 2y ago

Interest in research and intellectual curiosity are great motivators, but they don't pay rent. The problem isn't that people expect a PhD to be a path to riches. It's that in many places, it barely provides a livable income at all

arkh 2y ago

> because one is interested in the subject and wants to do research Then you need a stable situation first. Not everyone can choose to spend years badly paid while accruing debt from tuition and renting in a high cost area. You read like a privileged person who comes from money or won the lottery.

zeroq 2y ago

I agree with the sentiment, but on the other hand, as someone who made some dubious career choices in his life I'll tell you that I really regret that no one told me to treat my life as a video game and plan out how to spend my points on the skill tree. I always thought I was lucky because I was into computers and was able to do what I actually enjoyed, but when I look back I don't think working for Wikia for $850 a month was the best choice I could have made.

__MatrixMan__ 2y ago

These here are hackers who sold out, or would like to. If you figure out where the principled hackers hang out, do let me know.

rightbyte 2y ago

> From the discussion here, it seems that HN turns out to be a very money-centric place. Somewhat surprising. It has always been heavy on Silicon Valley (legal) hustler types? Even more earlier. Concerning startups most seems disillusioned about the prospects nowadays.

dr_dshiv 2y ago

A lot of people pursue PhDs because they are good at school and are highly trained to “jump through the next hoop.” Not to be dismissive, because career academics are important. But there is an unnecessary anxiety for many about leaving school and entering the workforce. I think one attraction is also: “wow, I can get paid to continue my education?” Academia is like universal basic income for the highly intelligent. It’s a good system, overall and I think it will have a strong future. But it is not a good way to build wealth. That said, the freedom it provides can make a PhD a great place to start a business, start a family, etc. But, it requires bravery and self direction, because it certainly won’t steer you there.

gosub100 2y ago

My experience with college was that it was a very "money centric place", with the high rates of tuition, over paid bureaucrats, yet course instruction outsourced to grad students "working" for low hourly wages. Further, there was an "unacknowledged (though implicitly present) assumption" that faculty were in the business of bringing in grant money, and he who didn't wouldn't last long. Then in the last few years we came to learn that much of the "academics" that gets published today is completely bogus. What subject are those "researchers" interested in?

rob_c 2y ago

Given the cost of taking 4+ years of your life to train under someone learning a skill, yes, there's a huge financial risk in doing this. If you're able to ignore that fantastic, great for you and I hope you're happy, but even fully funded positions have just enough money to cover the minimum length of a PhD. To get the most from it chances are you will either end up with minor debt or wipe out some savings. Unfortunately such is life. IMO the goal of the PhD shouldn't be to think of a city job as a high frequency trader at the end, but that's my worldview that why spend X years studying in a field of you don't intend to follow it... Chances are if you say that during an interview for a place, unless it's in studying high frequency trading you won't get a call back.

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FrustratedMonky 2y ago

" might pursue a doctoral degree because one is interested in the subject and wants to do research" Dude, you got-a eat.

xanderlewis 2y ago
Yes. That's why funding exists.
- FrustratedMonky 2y ago
  The parent was making the argument that the 'drive to find truth', or 'knowledge' should out way petty material concerns. Implying that paying PhD's less is a-ok because they work for a higher purpose.

vishnugupta 2y ago

PhD is a really big investment. You are spending 4-6 years of your prime earning years chasing a dream or in the hope of making a dent in your domain’s problems. All that while your age mates from school/college/town are progressing in their life and career. Also if you get into non-academic job then those early years foregone usually have disproportionately bigger impact on your career progression and your accumulated wealth. The decision is really big one and it’s only natural to consider money angle. I’ve known quite a few get into it because of interest and then getting disillusioned as they watch the world pass them by.

StefanBatory 2y ago
It's why I wouldn't want to pursue PhD. (besides simply knowing I'm not cut out for research). I don't want to spend even more years in education. I want to still use my youth while I can; going into PhD would make me unable to.

entropi 2y ago

Most of us do need to work for a living. Researching for the sake of research, and learning purely because one is interested in the subject is nice and all, but it is a luxury few can afford. I think it is beneficial for everyone that the money angle for PhD is openly discussed and made public. This way, the correct audience (those who don't need to work for a living, i.e. born rich) might be attracted instead of burning out middle/lower class youth with dreams. ...Or steps can be taken to change PhD programs. Which does not seem likely.

herval 2y ago

It feels like YC population these days is mostly employees of mid-to-large tech companies trying to get rich out of RSUs. It used to be more about founders and wannabe founders, but the attitude shifted through the years to a mix of cynical money-grabbing attitude, so it's unsurprising that anything that doesn't mean "higher TC" is unpopular (except for side projects involving hardware, for some reason)

xanderlewis 2y ago
It's supposed to be populated by hackers (in the general sense). But it certainly isn't now — if it ever was.

Gollapalli 2y ago

I wanted to do exactly this, and was told many many times to rethink it.

xanderlewis 2y ago
And you listened? Stop listening.
- Gollapalli 2y ago
  They made good points and I made a call. I still think I made the right one.
  - xanderlewis 2y ago
    You can never really know. I'd rather take a chance and know I got it wrong than never take the chance and never know I got it right.

xanderlewis 2y ago

Conclusion: sorry, but you all seem to be a gang of miserable, jaded, nihilistic, incurious, what's-in-it-for-me bastards. I hope aspiring PhD students don't take any of this nonsense too seriously. I don't think I read a single first-hand account in this whole thread; just a lot of whining, hearsay, entirely made up bollocks, and a hell of a lot of chips on shoulders.