I personally had one year experience working at a company during my four years undergraduate degree which I have just finished. I will be starting a PhD next January at a top uk university, and the only reason I am doing the PhD is to solve a specific scientific and technological problem ( Basically I don't care a lot about the process of PhD alhough it might be a necessary tool to solve the prblem I am after), and if I can solve that problem I will go on to set up my own company and pursue my other objectives in life. It is Just like Larry Page and Sergey Brin who set up their google company from their PhD work at stanford.

I have read a lot of complaints in this forum, and what I want to say is that if you know exactly what do you want in this life, many problems will be solved easily.