Fully agree with what you said - there is a lot of sampling bias because of relative rarity of PhDs (few bad apples can completely color expectations).
It was quite a surprise for me when doing a summer program at major US corporation and everybody was going gaga because our group had many PhDs.
In academia, everybody has doctorate, so degree in itself doesn't really confer any additional signal.
In industry, people take it as a signal even when it is not (person matters more than degree, the same person would be hireable / not-hireable whether having or not having degree).
But anyways, you wouldn't want to work at places / for people which can't / don't take such things into account.
That's why I mentioned meritocracy - it's nicer to work at places where it matters only if you can get the job done, not your degree / pedigree / who-you-know.
But yeah, human nature, hard to fight against, we all like signaling (it's useful heuristics after all).
Fully agree with what you said - there is a lot of sampling bias because of relative rarity of PhDs (few bad apples can completely color expectations).
It was quite a surprise for me when doing a summer program at major US corporation and everybody was going gaga because our group had many PhDs.
In academia, everybody has doctorate, so degree in itself doesn't really confer any additional signal.
In industry, people take it as a signal even when it is not (person matters more than degree, the same person would be hireable / not-hireable whether having or not having degree).
But anyways, you wouldn't want to work at places / for people which can't / don't take such things into account.
That's why I mentioned meritocracy - it's nicer to work at places where it matters only if you can get the job done, not your degree / pedigree / who-you-know.
But yeah, human nature, hard to fight against, we all like signaling (it's useful heuristics after all).