Isn't working towards the top of any field going to have just as many chances of failure at every step? My wife was the very top candidate for her surgical sub-specialty in the year she completed her fellowship and she still barely got an attending position due to how few openings were available. I am nowhere near as talented as she is, but I still had a tremendous battle to get where I am in tech and I watch brilliant engineers tap out before hitting even PE routinely. Working hard for 4 years and having nothing to show for it is de rigueur. Most effort spent in the world is spent in vain, but you have no chance of winning if you don't play the game.
The difference with software engineering is even if you "fail" you usually have a nice pile of money to show for it. If you drop out of a PhD all you have is some cool stories and obscure knowledge.
> all you have is some cool stories and obscure knowledge
As if obscure knowledge is worthless. Trading the opportunity to make money for obscure knowledge is the whole value proposition of a Ph.D.! If one doesn’t value obscure knowledge, yeah, a Ph.D. Might be a bad value proposition for that individual.
Nope. You can go ahead and make a startup which can fail and then you're left with burnout and an empty bank account. Wasting time is an integral part of life.
Sorry, I suppose being a professional musician is one field with similar requirements for skill versus pay. Nobody's going to pay any money to a middle-quintile piano player, just like nobody in academia is going to pay any money to a freshly-minted middle-quintile PHD.
