Economics PhDs in a Tech Firm
How do you settle the debate over academy v. company?
Soon after I obtained my MBA from Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), I left Atlanta for Tokyo to resettle my residential location to work and live a new life in a beverage giant from the familiar brand next to Georgia Tech campus. The rectangle Coca-Cola building stood so tall that I often glanced at it while I was approaching the business school parking lot in Tech Pkwy NW.
The work in Shibuya office of Coca-Cola Japan was somewhat dull for me in part of 40 aged engineers from a legacy system with third generation language (COBOL). It was so hard to transform most seniors with old minds for computer generation. I found the work less analytical and non-business implications such as pricing, product development, and strategy.
I wanted to pursue another educational challenge for a doctorate in business and sent an inquiry email to Dr. Charles Mulford of Georgia Tech, professor of accounting. I wondered how he reacted to my hope for advance education. Contrary to my expectation, he sent me back an email, describing that he remembered me. If I wanted it, he would write a letter of recommendation. I was pleased with his reaction, only temporarily.
Most academic teachers in Tokyo disagreed with my new pursuit, arguing that MBA holders pursue business success to become rich in Tokyo, not in a field of publishing an idea to prove a theory in the journal. They said that it was completely different environment. I got stuck with my career.
On September 10th, the Economist correspondent wrote an episode of PhDs going to Silicon Valley. The story described an academic prize of Meta, used to be known as facebook, to award fellowships up to two years’ worth of tuition and additional $42,000 scholarship offer. The offer has been extended to non-science and technology field and an economist received a generous stipend likely to lure a promising graduate to work for a tech firm.
The trend is on and the boom attracts more economic PhDs in placement for Silicon Valley. In recent four years, recruiters received new PhDs of one in seven graduates, up from one in 20 analysts. Is it a good career? Why do they waive the right to be a professor in academy and forgo research in the education institutions?
Several factors explain the trend, a story writes. Among them, the reciprocal benefits accounts for the boom to take in academic scholars in a for-a-profit organization. Pay is better in business than in education, for one thing. The second factor involves an opportunity to provide “publish or perish” culture in business environment.
Research dominates the part of analytical jobs, which means analyzing date with statistics approach. The majority of work week confines the researchers to see the causal relationships of two or more variables. I would say that more than 90% of time allotted to think through data analysis. The format of technical writing is almost predetermined, describing summary, introduction, experiments, and conclusion.
PhDs in economics are experts in designing experiments with variables to identify causal relationships such as monetary incentives working for or against human behaviors. A tech firm discovers a better marketing through logic derived from a judgmental research.
If a tech firm provides a common ground for research opportunity without disrupting PhDs with tons of emails and social activities, which often means drinking and outing to BBQs, I vote for a trend and PhDs in economics find a good environment for publication in established journals in economics.
In Tokyo, it is nearly impossible to join a fast-growing for-a-profit institution such as Softbank, Rakten, or DeNA to find an idea-oriented workplace with research and publication. But if the trend in Silicon Valley goes across the ocean to reach an Asian land, that is something to please the academic researchers. Can you do that in Tokyo soon?