I also think it's telling that she would only consider all of the studying worth it if your audience was bigger! I got my phd because (well mostly because you have to in some fields, but also) I was so crazy about my field that I really wanted to spend years studying it. It was interesting to me. One might say I was "obsessed" with it the way Shauna is "obsessed with neuroscience" but I wanted to make it my life's work. Yeah I publish papers but I do it reluctantly because it's required but it's by far the least favorite part of my job. If Shauna considered a phd solely to increase her reading audience then yeah, it was most definitely not her path.