That doesn't imply that all those people needed a PhD for their job, though. I worked with multiple people at Amazon who had PhDs who were doing the exact same job I was.

Some people do their PhD while they're working. You might want to change career paths, e.g. specialize in some machine learning subfield.

I'm pretty sure Doctors specialize further, whilst working, as well?

Google is exceptional, and also in area of "growth capture". How about large companies in more mature industries? For example, do any of the telecom companies maintain the equivalent of Bell Labs today?

Google is infamous for valuing academic achievement over practical skills in interviews, 8% is actually much lower than what previously reported - I guess they lowered their standards of late.

If google is at 8%, everyone else of comparable size will probably be around 3% at best.