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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

#231

Post by selfishgene »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #164
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.

MIT became a rich institution because of its ties to the military.

Lincoln Laboratory is often called a "PhD graveyard" for good reason: it's where reject academics who were denied tenure go to die.

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#232

Post by TACIXAT »

douglasisshiny wrote: post #87
xenospn wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sadly it makes it harder to find a job as a software engineer in which I can work for a company or in a position making a positive impact on the world (as amorphous as that may sound). Any interaction that I've had with a recruiter when considering looking. Me: "I'm not interested in working on ad tech or a bank, etc. I'm interested in privacy companies, green technology, conservation, etc." Recruiter: "I have a job…

Can I interest you in a React / Typescript role for Rent Seeking 2.0?

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#233

Post by ksec »

bluedevil2k wrote: post #43
ghaff wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a federal commission that Schmidt co-chairs. >haven't built universities like Stanford, Duke, Cornell etc. I assume the answer is that they generally find that it makes a lot more sense to give oodles of cash to their alma mater or some favored school to get your name on a building and/or really beef up a department than to try to found a new school which would likely take decades to establish any sort of reputa…

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…

I know this is off Topic but you have partly answered the question I have always in had my head about Modern Day Sports Economics.

They have sort of become Billionaires playground.

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#234

Post by vmception »

novok wrote: post #213
vmception wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the DC area computer science programs feed right into the NSA and defense. Which is funny because Silicon Valley companies won't think candidates from those schools are that interesting, while simultaneously thinking that the intelligence and defense has better programmers. People are people.

I think the more accurate perception is they have relatively unlimited budget and interest in attacking computer security, along with special powers like doing basically secret illegal shit that make them difficult to beat in security matters. Not that any specific set of their employees are super geniuses. While SV still has to run a profitable business while trying to care about security.

Yes, that is the reality

Along with sovereign immunity to CFAA and other laws

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#235

Post by carom »

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.

Surveillance capitalism was only impactful because there is no way to pay small amounts of money to view a digital good. No one is going to applaud you or your employer for setting up the greatest invasion of privacy the world has ever known.

I would go so far to say you have harmed the business models of tons and tons of apps by setting up an expectation that apps should be "free".

Disclaimer: Former Google employee.

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#236

Post by maxmalysh »

Avicebron wrote: post #214
maxmalysh wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I filter based on experience. Previous jobs, roles, projects. Degree is a weak predictor and I consider it mostly for candidates with less than 3 years of experience.

I guess my question transitions over to: If a candidate has less than 3 years experience and no degree, where does that fall on your radar? Genuinely curious as it falls into the "need experience to get experience" job meme many people find initially.

If a candidate has less than 3 years of experience AND he has nothing to show AND he has no degree... he will not pass the filter.

Moreover, I'm not really interested in "years of experience". Previous titles don't really matter, too.

What does matter for junior and middle developers: personal projects, specific products or features developed by them or their team, accounts on Upwork, GitHub or StackOverflow, recommendations from other people, a personal website or a blog.

We are talking about the initial screening filter, so _anything_ proving you are a real developer is fine.

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#237

Post by optimusclimb »

FrankPetrilli wrote: post #230
Avicebron wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess my question transitions over to: If a candidate has less than 3 years experience and no degree, where does that fall on your radar? Genuinely curious as it falls into the "need experience to get experience" job meme many people find initially.

Speaking from my perspective as a prolific FAANG interviewer: Listing whatever experience you can (high-school jobs, sites created for friends, college jobs) alongside interesting personal projects is a huge leg up for getting through recruiting. If you're early in your career, find a few small-time jobs somewhere in tech that'll hire you, and learn as much as you can as fast as you can. MSPs are desperate for people…

> Speaking from my perspective as a prolific FAANG interviewer

That's interesting, and somewhat rankling - as both times I interviewed at the G in FAANG, not a single interviewer gave a nickel about any of my experience, or projects I had worked on.

It's such a joke that the keys to a golden line on your resume and a giant salary are gated by the luck of which 7 people get picked to grill you that day, how busy they currently are, and what their pet question is.

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#238

Post by teleforce »

sharadov wrote: post #191
Upvoter33 wrote: post #45

"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…

Laughable, because a large number of tech workers in SV are from India, and a large percentage get their undergrad degrees in India, most come here for Masters degrees, but a majority go to engineering schools all over the US.

This. Anecdotally one Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) senior Professor told me that normally the best achievers of their undergraduate students go to US for work or further studies after graduation, the middle achievers work in India and the bottom achievers mostly continue their study at IIT with India govt's sponsorship. According to him even the bottom achievers are actually still good students since they graduated from IIT.

Since there are currently 23 IITs, the numbers that go to US (and SV) every year can be very significant. The long term effect of this phenomenon can be observed from the increasing number of US (and SV) tech companies CEOs are from India education background.

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#239

Post by 95_JL_OK »

nitrogen wrote: post #99
95_JL_OK wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd tack onto the first point: obsolete technology everywhere. Worked in the public sector for a short while and the amount of outdated tech being used is astounding. Some of the solutions being discussed as "new" have been outdated for decades. Having to deal with overwhelming bureaucracy in exchange for working on what everywhere else would be legacy systems really killed any desire to stay.

The most important aspect of any technology is that it works. In that regard, functioning "legacy" systems are ideal systems. The legacy bureaucracies are the problem. Kind of like SpaceX popularizing rocket reuse, we should think of older code, languages, and frameworks as "battle tested", not "legacy". They should only be replaced if it's clear that essential maintenance is not possible, if a critical requirement i…

Absolutely... in the situation where the systems are actually legacy systems and not new installations or adoptions of obsolete technology. What I was trying to get at, and realize I expressed poorly, was that they are sometimes looking at implementing (today) things which are obsolete. That's what I meant by 'would be legacy anywhere else'.

This, I guess, would be a consequence of legacy bureaucracy, given that the people making the calls are not very aware of the new technologies and their advantages. A reluctance to adopt Python for example out of a distrust of FOSS comes to mind.

Re: Eric Schmidt is working to launch a university

#240

Post by nitrogen »

ghaff wrote: post #208
knzhou wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think the point people are missing is that you don't need more gold medals. Rather, the people "hiring" athletes need to recognize that for many purposes the difference between gold and silver and bronze and first and second runner up to bronze is trivial and possibly arbitrary, especially in situations where outcomes are not nearly as easily quantified as in an athletic competition.

Also gold medals aren't being used as hiring criteria for technical careers.
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