Is abandoning my PhD degree better for my career path? It is a known fact that reputation and lineage are a very important factor in academia. Master students need recommendation letters to get a PhD opportunity and the same for PhD students looking for a postdoc position. If a PhD supervisor knows someone in another institute or a company, he can very easily help his student get a postdoc or a good job in the industry. If your supervisors are prestigious in the community, you can start your career much more easily than your peers. Conversely, a mediocre PhD supervisor may become an obstacle for his talented student. 

I am a PhD student in CS, and I am at the final stage of my PhD. However, I wonder whether it is better to abandon my PhD degree because of the mediocrity of my supervisors. Since a thesis will be stored in a database; once deposited, the PhD student's name will be permanently bound to his supervisors, and if the public perception of my supervisors is low, I'm concerned that I may have difficulty building my own brand.

To address my concern, I would like to know which of the following states is likely to make it harder to become a leading scientist?


having a PhD from mediocre supervisors in a mediocre lab, or 
not having a PhD, and building one's name from scratch?
Your argument for abandoning your PhD hinges on a few false premises.

P1) You will wear the mark of your PhD for your whole life. 

That is not true. A PhD is, in principle, a degree given to someone capable of independent research. Whilst you do your PhD you may be associated with your supervisors. That's because you're a minnow in the sea and it is the easiest way for someone to know whether you are worth talking to (sorry about that). After your PhD, people will rarely if ever ask that. I say that as a postdoc.

P2) You will exchange your dignity for money if you renew your contract. WHAT? That's something internal to you, an external observer is unlikely to see it that way.

Moreover, if you do not intend to do a postdoc, none of these points you made will apply to industry people. They will just see that you have a PhD and they will think that's worth something.