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Indeed. Look at the institution best paper awards: http://jeffhuang.com/best_paper_awards.html#institutions

There are several companies (and not just universities) in the top 20. Microsoft leading.

But most of the people in the 'Research' departments of companies will have PhDs. For example, see the list of full-time positions at MSR [0]: both 'Researcher' positions require a PhD (Researcher - "Successful candidates will have a Ph.D", Post-Doc Researcher - "Applicants must have completed the requirements for a PhD, including submission of their thesis, prior to joining Microsoft Research"), and it sounds like it is helpful for some of the 'Technical' postions (Research Software Development Engineers - "RSDEs are strong software developers with a Bachelor’s Degree, and often a Masters or Ph.D. in computer science"). There are 'Non-PhD Researcher Opportunities', but only in India and China.

[0]: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/jobs/fulltime/default.as...

I'm at MSR in China and I have to say that, even though there are a few researchers without PhDs here, they are not that many.

And having a PhD and a body of work does help a lot in the interview cycles.

Oh, how could I have forgotten Microsoft?

Microsoft Research has a lot of amazing people working there, doing very impressive stuff.

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