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Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

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181–190 of 246 posts

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#181

This will fail not because it's a bad idea, but because the government will reject it. Contrary to popular belief, established universities do a very effective job of preparing tech talent for government jobs. The issues, which Schmidt seems to miss, are twofold: (1) the government, with few exceptions, is a TERRIBLE place to build effective tech skills. Slow, heavily outsourced, bureaucratic beyond belief, and low p…

Classic modern HN comment. The hard working person with a history of success who is trying a risky ambitious project will fail, because they didn't consider the few things a commentor instantly spotted as problems.

Classic modern HN comment response. You act like these criticisms are somehow inherently negative...

Just because people love to point out the HN discussion where Drew Houston got scrutiny for Dropbox, doesn't mean that discussion isn't valuable. I'm sure as hell Drew learned a ton from the criticisms.

This is the point of HN - it's OK.

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's honestly insulting copy, and ignores other North American schools like Waterloo that make up a disproportionate part of big tech.

NCSU isn't on this list regardless.

Can you be explicit about your point? It sounds like a complete non sequitur

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#183

"Palo Alto-based Stanford University ... and MIT have historically been the primary talent pools for the tech industry" This is far from true. If you look at the total workforce in tech, the majority is by far from much larger, public schools, like Berkeley, Michigan, Illinois, Washington, Texas, Wisconsin, etc., etc. MIT and Stanford have had amazing great people, but they are far from the "primary" source of talent…

And CMU

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#184

"Palo Alto-based Stanford University ... and MIT have historically been the primary talent pools for the tech industry" This is far from true. If you look at the total workforce in tech, the majority is by far from much larger, public schools, like Berkeley, Michigan, Illinois, Washington, Texas, Wisconsin, etc., etc. MIT and Stanford have had amazing great people, but they are far from the "primary" source of talent…

I came to the comments say the same thing. I’ve hired and worked with many engineers and the overwhelming majority did not attend MIT or Stanford. Some of the best didn’t attend college at all!

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's honestly insulting copy, and ignores other North American schools like Waterloo that make up a disproportionate part of big tech.

(should have included all the great Canadian universities in the list too, my apologies ... not that I included all the great US universities)

You said "much larger [than Stanford/MIT], public schools", which definitely includes the top Canadian universities, so you're good

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#186
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you are saying.

well, did adtech change the available income or why is it that it's so much bigger than the old way of doing advertisement? I think the only point, why you are seeing this "growth" is that you have an oligopolic structure which is just skimming money (mainly to the benefit of the 0.1 percenters) without creating any additional value compared to the traditional way of doing advertising? Or how again are you increasing…

Plenty of (say, gaming, entertainment etc) companies in developing countries employed plenty of people due to advertising revenue, which would otherwise not be viable.

Google display ads takes a fraction of revenue and passes the rest to publishers. Same with audience network.

Digital advertising lowered the barrier significantly to making profit for lots of digital businesses. It enabled lots of physical businesses to get recognition and discovery in one way or the other.

Not sure why this is not clear, but happy to discuss more.

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Depends on who you ask. The general us population owes its army their way of life, quality of life, and wealth.

>quality of life, and wealth.

Can you elaborate more on how invasion of Iraq helped in increasing quality of life for an average citizen?

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#188
post #3

I've always wondered why mega billionaires from this era such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, Mark Zuckerberg etc. haven't built universities like Stanford, Duke, Cornell etc. - all started by monopolists from the previous era. I guess Eric Schmidt would be the first one

That's a bit reductionist in terms of Cornell's history.

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#189

"Palo Alto-based Stanford University ... and MIT have historically been the primary talent pools for the tech industry" This is far from true. If you look at the total workforce in tech, the majority is by far from much larger, public schools, like Berkeley, Michigan, Illinois, Washington, Texas, Wisconsin, etc., etc. MIT and Stanford have had amazing great people, but they are far from the "primary" source of talent…

I came to the comments say the same thing. I’ve hired and worked with many engineers and the overwhelming majority did not attend MIT or Stanford. Some of the best didn’t attend college at all!

In your experience how do you filter candidates without a degree? Portfolio? Do you review their code?

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#190
post #138
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'm surprised Olin college hasn't come up in this discussion yet (http://www.olin.edu/). They're small, but essentially went with this model, at least for a while. They're more undergraduate-focused though, so I don't know if they'll ever garner the "reputation" of MIT and Stanford's impactful research programs.
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