I know plenty of non-PhD technology people in government who are well-respected. They aren't paid nearly as highly as Silicon Valley ($50-70k would be typical salaries) but they're often just as smart, and the government will fund their education.
Some of my employees are ex-Quora employees. The company is a dumpster fire. It has a lot of turnover and huge quality-of-life issues for employees.
I agree that it's over-obsessed with the real-world reputations of its users. It also kills its young. If your reputation gets "too big", you get banned, just like a card counter gets kicked out of casinos.
Sure there are some spam and useless answers, but there are experienced users as well who contributing with great answers.
Everyone good on Quora is going to get "Church'd" soon enough. The moderators have done everything they can to drive out quality. The ban of Michael O. Church (who was a moderate, thoughtful member of that community, regardless of his divisive presence here) convinced me of that.
I also find it interesting that any Indian or Chinese woman with feminist views that would be considered moderate in the U.S. gets reported as a sock puppet and banned.