3 ms·

I think it's the status; there are a fair amount of people on HN who have PhDs (I have no idea what the actual fraction is; ~5-10%?) and a lot more equally smar

I think it's the status; there are a fair amount of people on HN who have PhDs (I have no idea what the actual fraction is; ~5-10%?) and a lot more equally smart people who don't have one. And some (surely small) fraction of those people either have their own insecurities, or feel badgered by PhDs (like michaelochurch below, who I am glad explained his negativity). But it saddens me a bit, because getting a PhD really can be a wonderful and valuable thing.

mjn 13y ago
HN's local PhD-holders are interesting examples of how having a PhD doesn't really mean you have to do any specific thing (or pursue an academic career). When I was doing a little research on the most prolific HN posters [1], I found 3 of the top 20 have a PhD, and none are in academia: Paul Graham runs YCombinator, John Graham-Cumming is a programmer and author, and Colin Wright works in maritime technology (while also giving mathematics talks to students on the side). Another only-slightly-less-prolific poster is Colin Percival, who runs a one-man technology business (Tarsnap). [1] http://www.kmjn.org/notes/hacker_news_posters.html http://www.kmjn.org/notes/hacker_news_posters.html