> It’s a nice pyramid scheme...

Before I became aware of criticisms likening universities to pyramid schemes, I recall hearing a Stanford professor managing a large research team say something like: "For this project, we have around 150 PhD students exploring it further in many directions". I was astonished by the sheer scale of their capabilities, especially because I liked the subject and had hoped to explore it as a hobby with just a few like-minded friends.

I've had similar experiences on a with various ideas for compilers and for C++ debugging.

Although I'm my case, the other people were mostly at FAANG companies, rather than academia.

And who gets, uh, takes the credit when one of the PhD students "breaks through"?