

Ask HN: Entrepreneurially-minded phd? - potentialphd

Hey, I&#x27;m making a decision whether to leave my current employer to start a phd in machine learning in the fall. I&#x27;m curious to hear from people who have gone through phds and later started companies - was it worth it?<p>Curious about thoughts on the networks you guys built up, the usefulness of your research, and the general time-worthiness of the thing.
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turnip1979
As someone with a PhD, I'd recommend against it. I haven't started a company
yet but it is a deep burning life ambition for me. A PhD takes a long time to
finish and gives you a very narrow set of skills. I did a PhD in Systems. When
I started my program, it seemed to be a golden ticket (just like ML looks
today). Today, after a PhD and 5 years of research experience, I would not get
hired as a CTO. I have zero real-world deployment/operations experience or
management experience.

If I could give my younger self advice, I'd tell myself to do an MBA instead.

