I have a PhD (physics), and I worked in a quant team with maths, physics, engineering and comp sci PhDs, and I can assure you the bell curve demographic is identical there as it is in a department of non PhDs. There are some very good developers, the odd mythical "10x" developer (in this case, someone that really just writes repeatedly same thing in every job to be honest), and some very poor developers.
> The PhD diploma itself doesn't have much practical use in financial terms; it's not a good investment to get a PhD for purely practical reasons.
I don't know if you say this because you have don't have one, or haven't worked with many (not just one) PhDs?
In the UK at least, your starting salary will be significantly higher than just a plain degree, and it also opens up a broader job market (in the City, at least, and aerospace and defense) where PhDs can be a requirement in some jobs because (junk) degrees are now ten-a-penny.
You learn writing skills, and analytical skills both of which are financially useful and practical.
I get the feel that what you're implying is that PhDs are less imaginative and perhaps less likely to be entrepreneurial. In that case, you may have a point.
My point is that, on average, in my experience, they are more interested in big complex theories and hypotheticals than in reality and all its tedious subtleties. They can miss the point that all these tedious subtleties add up in terms of complexity and shouldn't be scoffed at.
This infatuation with complexity is itself a big problem. I've observed a lot of PhDs neglect the cost of complexity. Choosing complex solutions with significant practical drawbacks over simpler ones in order to get some tiny gains in performance (for example) or to get some specific characteristics which they feel is important but which the average user doesn't care about at all.
> The PhD diploma itself doesn't have much practical use in financial terms; it's not a good investment to get a PhD for purely practical reasons.
I don't know if you say this because you have don't have one, or haven't worked with many (not just one) PhDs?
In the UK at least, your starting salary will be significantly higher than just a plain degree, and it also opens up a broader job market (in the City, at least, and aerospace and defense) where PhDs can be a requirement in some jobs because (junk) degrees are now ten-a-penny.
You learn writing skills, and analytical skills both of which are financially useful and practical.
I get the feel that what you're implying is that PhDs are less imaginative and perhaps less likely to be entrepreneurial. In that case, you may have a point.