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Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

businessinsider.com

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Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#61

Post by jason0597 »

xenospn wrote: post #48
jonwachob91 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everything in the world can be measured by pay. Sure, an FBI Criminal Profiler earns a tiny fraction of what a google dev earns. But one can take serial killers off the street, and the other just makes ads more annoying. A Social Worker earns almost nothing, but they get to help the most needy of people get the help they need. A FB engineer earns 10x the pay, but just makes ads more annoying. A teacher earns almo…

"The common good" is something that is easily lost on the vast majority of people in tech, it seems.

I'm not surprised. If you grow up as a computer nerd all your life with few recognizable achievements, and suddenly a Big Tech company dangles in front of you $100k or more, very few people can say no, especially if you also grew up from a relatively poor background.

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#62

Post by bluedevil2k »

ghaff wrote: post #52
bluedevil2k wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're underestimating the egos of billionaires and how they love winning compared to other billionaires. A name on a building is nice. A name on a university that's mentioned with Duke and MIT...now that's something you can brag about. The owners of NBA teams - all billionaires, most willing to lose money year-to-year in order to win and beat the other billionaires. The women's basketball league in Russia - teams ow…

>A name on a university that's mentioned with Duke and MIT...now that's something you can brag about. That's the rub though, isn't it. I'm not sure even Bezos has money that would be needed to pull that off over, say, a 10 year horizon. MIT has almost a $20 billion endowment to give some idea of the sorts of money flows we're talking about here. To say nothing of the fact that they already have the faculty, physical…

That’s why I think they should donate (ie buy) an existing university and transform it. I’d go for Pepperdine, right in Malibu, near the beach, perfect weather, great architecture.

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#63

Post by xenospn »

jason0597 wrote: post #61
xenospn wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The common good" is something that is easily lost on the vast majority of people in tech, it seems.

I'm not surprised. If you grow up as a computer nerd all your life with few recognizable achievements, and suddenly a Big Tech company dangles in front of you $100k or more, very few people can say no, especially if you also grew up from a relatively poor background.

I think it's actually something unique about Americans. When I started my company, I wanted our slogan to be "Helping each other, together". I very quickly realized that no one in the US actually responds to a saying like that. The vast majority simply doesn't "get" it.

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#64

Post by x87678r »

jonwachob91 wrote: post #22
x87678r wrote: post #9

> funnel tech workers into government work Government work doesn't pay well, so it will never be as prestigious as Stanford or MIT. EDIT - previous title had the headline part where it said it will "rival Stanford and MIT"

Not everything in the world can be measured by pay. Sure, an FBI Criminal Profiler earns a tiny fraction of what a google dev earns. But one can take serial killers off the street, and the other just makes ads more annoying. A Social Worker earns almost nothing, but they get to help the most needy of people get the help they need. A FB engineer earns 10x the pay, but just makes ads more annoying. A teacher earns almo…

I completely agree. Just the headline I didn't agree with. Universities for teaching, social work, fbi profilers will never be as prestigious as those where you can get trained to earn millions.

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#65

Post by jason0597 »

tehlike wrote: post #54
jonwachob91 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everything in the world can be measured by pay. Sure, an FBI Criminal Profiler earns a tiny fraction of what a google dev earns. But one can take serial killers off the street, and the other just makes ads more annoying. A Social Worker earns almost nothing, but they get to help the most needy of people get the help they need. A FB engineer earns 10x the pay, but just makes ads more annoying. A teacher earns almo…

"the other just makes ads more annoying" The meme that never dies. Advertising funded tons of tons of businesses on apps and on web, employed hundreds of thousands directly and created a large economy. Disclaimer: Former google, current facebook employee, working in ads.

The US army also employs hundreds of thousands. Does that mean it's good to pump so much money into it and keep it that strong?

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#66

Post by bumby »

vsskanth wrote: post #34
ojnabieoot wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big part of that was that there were simply far less universities in the mid-late 1800s than there are now, so there was a demand - this is particularly true for the West Coast. Likewise, both Cornell and MIT, though private and philanthropist-funded, were also land grant universities, and part of a deliberate policy (starting with Lincoln) to increase the number of US universities, along with providing a more "pra…

don't you think the demand still exists today ? the economy seems to be in ever increasing need of a highly skilled workforce, in addition to reskilling existing ones.

It depends what percentage of a college education you ascribe to "vocational skills" and what amount is "signalling".

The Morrill Land-Grant Act was, in part, a response for the need for new skills of an industrialized economy.

However, if you believe schools are mostly about credentials and signalling, online learning institutes often have a large accreditation hurdle. E.g., it's generally preferred to have an MIT degree rather than a list of MIT MOOCs taken because there is a certain amount of elite signalling that comes with the degree even if the skills learned are the exact same

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#67

Post by antimeridian »

bpodgursky wrote: post #56
Upvoter33 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"(1) the government, with few exceptions, is a TERRIBLE place to build effective tech skills. Slow, heavily outsourced, bureaucratic beyond belief, and low paid, there is very little creativity and variety in which to build unique technology, and no reward for the BS." Strong claim; links or citations to back it up? (Not necessarily doubting you, but it sounds a bit like a right-wing talking point, and hence I ask) Y…

I think the null hypothesis is more useful here; assume that NOWHERE builds tech skills until otherwise demonstrated. What you see: a bunch of tech startups founded by ex-Google, ex-FB, ex-Amazon employees. What you never see: hot tech startups founded by ex-government bureaucrats At very best/worst, you get beltway contractors who have "skills" at extracting money from the government. Those contractor firms NEVER en…

i don't know that I would use "founded a tech startup" as a good proxy for skill creation. perhaps the type of people who acquire tech skills in government are aren't necessarily primed to found a startup

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#68

Post by duxup »

The federal government pay cap in 2019 was $166,500....

These folks are going to go to this university that is better than Stanford and MIT (let's assume this mammoth task happens) and then eschew working for big tech paychecks in favor of working for the government?

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#69

Post by md2020 »

jonwachob91 wrote: post #22
x87678r wrote: post #9

> funnel tech workers into government work Government work doesn't pay well, so it will never be as prestigious as Stanford or MIT. EDIT - previous title had the headline part where it said it will "rival Stanford and MIT"

Not everything in the world can be measured by pay. Sure, an FBI Criminal Profiler earns a tiny fraction of what a google dev earns. But one can take serial killers off the street, and the other just makes ads more annoying. A Social Worker earns almost nothing, but they get to help the most needy of people get the help they need. A FB engineer earns 10x the pay, but just makes ads more annoying. A teacher earns almo…

Not to mention the fact that the government is one of the only funding sources for blue-sky research nowadays. Pretty much the only surviving research institutions that rival Bell Labs are the national laboratories. Getting to work with insanely bright people at the frontiers of your field (without the funding problems of academia) should be considered a benefit on its own. Also, many of the national labs pay quite well. They don’t use the USG pay scale which is a misconception I see very often in these discussions.

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#70

Post by ojnabieoot »

vsskanth wrote: post #34
ojnabieoot wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big part of that was that there were simply far less universities in the mid-late 1800s than there are now, so there was a demand - this is particularly true for the West Coast. Likewise, both Cornell and MIT, though private and philanthropist-funded, were also land grant universities, and part of a deliberate policy (starting with Lincoln) to increase the number of US universities, along with providing a more "pra…

don't you think the demand still exists today ? the economy seems to be in ever increasing need of a highly skilled workforce, in addition to reskilling existing ones.

> the economy seems to be in ever increasing need of a highly skilled workforce

This is a claim I've seen repeated often but have never seen any real evidence to back up. It seems more like "we need skilled workers but don't want to pay them skilled wages." Regardless the problem (in the US) is not an absence of universities like it was in the 19th century - financial barriers to bachelors degrees are significant but that is not a symptom of low supply and high demand.

So no, I don't think the demand exists (in the US) today, at all.

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