Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university • Hacker News Board

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#161

Post by selfishgene » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 10:04 PM UTC

My favorite quote is at the end:

"Per the report, the Digital Service Academy would serve as a third reservoir for the best and brightest technology workers, but one that would ideally produce graduates imbued with a sense of government duty."

... because places like MIT and Stanford sure as hell don't!

It looks like Schmidt just wants the next generation of students to forgo their dreams of starting the next Google.

I think a better idea to help this country stay competitive is for companies like Google to stop offshoring their operations ... and pay their goddamn taxes like the rest of us.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/31/21044662/google-end-tax-...

https://fortune.com/2019/12/06/big-tech-taxes-google-faceboo...

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#162

Post by tehlike » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 10:05 PM UTC

fock wrote: post #77

tehlike wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

and most important of all: it created a new group of rent-seekers from scratch. well done!

Not sure what you are saying.

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#163

Post by kyawzazaw » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 10:08 PM UTC

knzhou wrote: post #112

nitrogen wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the point of school prestige, at least in tech, is to assess skill. If the available pool of raw talent is larger than can be funneled through prestigious schools, then there is a need for more schools.

Again, just substitute the words. But the point of Olympic medals is to assess skill. If the available pool of talented athletes is larger than the number of gold medals, then there is a need for more gold medals.

brilliant analogy

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#164

Post by dumbfoundded » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 10:09 PM UTC

selfishgene wrote: post #161

My favorite quote is at the end: "Per the report, the Digital Service Academy would serve as a third reservoir for the best and brightest technology workers, but one that would ideally produce graduates imbued with a sense of government duty." ... because places like MIT and Stanford sure as hell don't! It looks like Schmidt just wants the next generation of students to forgo their dreams of starting the next Google.…

I can't speak for Stanford but MIT is extremely closely tied with the federal government. The Lincoln Lab for instance gets ~$1B/year from the Defense Department. The only reason MIT became a well known institution at all is because of its ties to the military.

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#165

Post by kyawzazaw » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 10:11 PM UTC

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…

Stephen A. Schwarzman though.

He is barely 10% of Jeff Bezoz. Not just a name on a building either. A whole new program.

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#166

Post by math_and_stuff » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 10:11 PM UTC

zjaffee wrote: post #148

zazerbayev wrote: post #141

I think this is a great idea. You must ask yourself why the government is able to retain word-class managers and jurists despite stiff competition from the private sector. James Comey was an executive at the world's largest hedge fund, why did he quit for a government job where he was making 100x less? Any federal judge could've made a fortune in corporate law, why didn't they choose to? Because there is a sense of p…

I think it's more complicated than that, all of these roles come with substantial amounts of near unilateral executive power that can impact the way the country is run for decades to come. Even all of the existing US government tech posts like the USDS and 18F are ultimately there purely to service the needs of a bureaucratic agency and their particular management. For a technology specific role to have the same leve…

Sounds a lot like the Defense Innovation Board and National Security Commission on AI.

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#167

Post by kyawzazaw » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 10:13 PM UTC

tehabe wrote: post #57

I remember a story that Leland Stanford asked what is needed to found a university and the answer was 200 million dollars. What they didn't tell him, that it also takes 200 hundred years. Universities are a longterm project, if a university is good or not, is something you don't really realise while you are there but when you are finished and try to use your knowledge.

years alone mean nothing too.

See example: https://www.centre.edu/bicentennial/

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#168

Post by refurb » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 10:15 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #138

refurb wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prestige takes a LONG time to build. You’d basically need your graduates to becomes titans of industry. Bezos would be dead long before that happens.

I'm not sure that's literally true. Given sufficient money: - Desired faculty: We'll triple your salary and hire your spouse too. Oh, and give you unprecedented freedom. - Desired students: Free tuition and board and a great campus environment. At the least you could jump-start a pretty darned interesting educational institution at least within a certain focus. But I'm not sure the money is realistic, at least at a s…

I don’t disagree you couldn’t start laying the foundations of a prestigious institution, but to create one that rivals MIT, Harvard, Stanford?

We’re talking graduates who become heads of governments, CEOs of unicorns, etc.

Now you could become “the Harvard of tech” a bit easier, but would Bezos settle for that alone?

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#169

Post by monocasa » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 10:15 PM UTC

mturmon wrote: post #144

pb7 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very odd statement indeed. I have never heard anything even remotely corroborating this. In fact (highly anecdotally, take it as entertainment at best), I have read that public opinion holds NSA's technical capabilities in high esteem but in reality, the talent is vastly below that of the top consumer tech companies because most tech employees would never contribute to the type of work the government does.

I hear you, and appreciate your caveat ("highly anecdotally"). But consider a couple of data points: -- KH-11 satellite, and presumed successors -- Stuxnet -- Utah data center ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center ) -- The rather enormous intelligence budget that allows all kinds of creativity The above indicates that there must be some corners of these agencies that are extremely technically skilled, and…

KH-11 is Lockheed.

Stuxnet was probably mainly Mossad.

The Utah data center was a pretty run of the mill data center, but apparently plagued by technical issues.

And yeah, they have a huge budget which allows them to buy a lot of toys for a bit above normal price.

Their mathematicians are top notch though from what I've heard.

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#170

Post by dumbfoundded » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 10:16 PM UTC

zazerbayev wrote: post #141

I think this is a great idea. You must ask yourself why the government is able to retain word-class managers and jurists despite stiff competition from the private sector. James Comey was an executive at the world's largest hedge fund, why did he quit for a government job where he was making 100x less? Any federal judge could've made a fortune in corporate law, why didn't they choose to? Because there is a sense of p…

Why? For some the reasons you list are certainly it. For many more, it's the revolving door. You make money in private industry, change the legal or regulatory structure and then go back to private industry to make even more.

Here's a database: https://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/