The PhD Paradox

Why Your Advisor Makes Less Than a Corporate Trainer

Your dissertation advisor - the one who spent 20 years mastering quantum mechanics or medieval history - makes $75,000 (sometimes more or less) a year.

The corporate trainer teaching Excel shortcuts to middle managers? $120,000.

I know because I've been in both rooms.

Last week, I billed $400 an hour to explain AI workflows to a large enterprise company, they didn’t bat an eye at the price.

The week before, I guest-lectured at a university where the department chair makes less than my daily rate.

This is not a brag, rather the opposite, its what breaks my brain:

The professor understands AI's implications for human consciousness and governance. The corporate trainer knows VLOOKUP(excel command).

Guess who drives the Tesla.

I track this because it haunts me:

• Average assistant professor: $65,000

• Average corporate trainer: $94,000

• Average "Executive Coach": $150,000

• Me, haven’t even finished my masters yet: $300-400/hour

The difference? I learned to sell insight, not credentials.

The system trained you wrong. It taught you that good ideas defend themselves. That merit rises. That if you just publish one more paper, recognition follows.

Meanwhile, someone with a two-day certification charges companies $5,000 to run a "Design Thinking Workshop" they learned from YouTube.

You rage. I get it. I raged too.

Then I realized: The problem isn't that knowledge has no value. It's that researchers don't know how to translate that value into language money understands.

The Three Lies Keeping You Broke

Lie 1: "Real scholars don't sell"
Your university sells. Every grant proposal is sales. Every conference presentation is marketing. You're already selling - just for someone else's profit.

Lie 2: "I need more credentials"
I charge more than some MBAs. My clients include PhDs. Your credential isn't the problem. Your positioning is.

Lie 3: "Corporate work means selling out"
I teach companies about consciousness and AI. I quote Foucault in boardrooms. I've never been more intellectually engaged.

The Escape Route

Here's what I learned going from U.S. Marine to researcher to consultant:

Companies don't pay for knowledge. They pay for transformation.

Your professor explains what AI is. I show executives what AI means for their survival.

Same knowledge. Different frame. 10x the price.

You think like a researcher. That's your superpower, not your weakness.

While MBAs recycle frameworks, you ask the questions that reimagine entire industries:

• "What if we're measuring the wrong thing?"

• "What assumptions are we not seeing?"

• "How would this look completely different?"

I charge $300/hour because I ask the questions MBAs don't know exist.

Stop selling your credentials. Start selling your perspective.

Not: "I have a PhD in Education"
But: "I help companies build learning systems for minds that think differently"

Not: "I research AI ethics"
But: "I keep your AI from destroying your reputation"

Not: "I study organizational behavior"
But: "I spot the dysfunction your consultants miss"

This Week's Challenge

Pick one insight from your research - something that made you see the world differently.

Now answer: Which executive, business, or institute is losing sleep because they don't understand this?

That's your first client.

The Path Forward

I'm building something for researchers who are done being underpaid. Every week, I will be sharing:

• How I structure $10k consulting engagements

• Scripts for translating academic insights into real world solutions

• Frameworks for future software and knowledge work

• Real examples from my journey from grunt to consultant

Your advisor shaped how you think. That's beautiful.

But they can't teach you how to get paid for it.

I can.

Because I've lived both sides. I've been the Marine who couldn't get academics to listen. I've been the researcher who couldn't pay rent.

Now I teach PhDs, knowledge workers, and anyone who will listen to charge more than MBAs.

Your knowledge is worth more than your university pays.

Time to prove it.

Ill be dropping some deeper and more detailed articles and videos on exactly what this all looks like over the next few weeks. Keep your eye out.

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