The distinction is not essentially vacuous: it's possible for the learning of "how to do independent research" to be itself largely independent, e.g. Edison and Einstein.
I said I don't recall Larry talking about this anywhere - can you show where he does? Specifically, about how doing the PhD helped this specific person to learn to do independent research. I'm interested in this.
I did not miss "great people around him". Your claim was that he didn't learn anything from his PhD. My claim is that he undoubtedly learned a lot from his advisor and other graduate students. If you are talking about learning stuff in classes, that is simply not the point of a PhD. Anywhere you see him credit Winograd's influence, you are seeing him mention learning from his PhD. See his commencement speech from like 3-4 days ago as one recent reference...
Soon after, I told my advisor, Terry Winograd, it would take a couple of weeks to download the web -- he nodded knowingly, fully aware it would take much longer but wise enough to not tell me.
Maybe a nod is encouragement, but it sounds like Larry had decided to do it anyway - so the statement reads as an absence of discouragement.
On reflection, I think we mean the same thing, your "learned a lot from his advisor and other graduate students", and my "great people around him". There's a question of what a PhD is. It could be the independent work; the academic justification and presentation in terms of literature; the discussions with smart, interested people. (btw I've been doing one for a few years now).
I think our disagreement is about our definitions.
The distinction is not essentially vacuous: it's possible for the learning of "how to do independent research" to be itself largely independent, e.g. Edison and Einstein.
I said I don't recall Larry talking about this anywhere - can you show where he does? Specifically, about how doing the PhD helped this specific person to learn to do independent research. I'm interested in this.