but finally be qualified to find other possibilities

I've always thought of legends like Manuel Blum and the institutions he's advised such as Shafi Goldwasser, Micali, Adleman -- and even their students -- as people who transcend this notion of the PhD as a mantle piece for their résumé. You can tell by the relevance and pointedness of their papers. These people are plugged in. They're solving really interesting problems in really elegant ways. You can tell a lot of love goes into their work.

It's not their job to market the field to people unlike themselves. I see inspiration in Dr. Blum's writing for people who truly want to philosophize like he does. It's your job to love thinking and working on the problems as much as them, and be good like them. When your contribution is cited and useful to others these notions of being "exploited" by "the system" must be secondary. If one feels that way one can go the Larry & Sergey route and change the world that way too.

I don't think there is a finally for any of the names I mentioned here when it comes to computer science.