The parent comment should probably be read as 'research and development' - working for IBM's research arm, Microsoft Research etc.
I was pointing out that the PhD is useful for "research", but not for research "and development."
Agreed. But less so, the other way around.
Which is why development jobs don't reward the PhD enough to pay for the opportunity cost. It counts as 6 years of industry experience -- which you could've gotten in 6 years of working in industry.