"... However, I am not sure whether I really want to spend the next 4-6 years doing a PhD; I'd much rather like to start working, doing my own projects, etc. What's a PhD worth? ..."
Go ahead and do your PhD. You'll learn some interesting stuff. It will be narrow, deep and might have some application. You will learn intellectual rigour, how to write and think. Then when you finish you will be just the type of new-hire a startup might want.
I often think doing a PhD is the anti-entrepreneur approach. The sheltered workshop of academia. All analysis, no action and devoid of the real cut and thrust of commerce. Then I think of all the new ideas generated by those who spent their time thinking about stuff. But did Woz need to do a PhD to build computers and start Apple? Do you need a PhD to do a startup? No. But the skills you learn there might help. Alternatively by the time you become a newly minted 'Dr', you might have created something of value and still learnt.
So what is it to be? The risky path of the Startup with its uncertainty, risk and commercial experience? Or the almost certain path of a PhD, a title and specific knowledge and less potential reward?
Go ahead and do your PhD. You'll learn some interesting stuff. It will be narrow, deep and might have some application. You will learn intellectual rigour, how to write and think. Then when you finish you will be just the type of new-hire a startup might want.
I often think doing a PhD is the anti-entrepreneur approach. The sheltered workshop of academia. All analysis, no action and devoid of the real cut and thrust of commerce. Then I think of all the new ideas generated by those who spent their time thinking about stuff. But did Woz need to do a PhD to build computers and start Apple? Do you need a PhD to do a startup? No. But the skills you learn there might help. Alternatively by the time you become a newly minted 'Dr', you might have created something of value and still learnt.
So what is it to be? The risky path of the Startup with its uncertainty, risk and commercial experience? Or the almost certain path of a PhD, a title and specific knowledge and less potential reward?