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Paul Graham: News from the Front

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Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#81

Post by michael_nielsen »

pg wrote: post #76
gojomo wrote: post #57

Though as a reader I start sympathetic to both the thesis (it matches my priors) and the author (always enjoy PG's essays), this struck me as hand-waving. For all the talk of, "I have a lot of data" and "[w]e're just finally able to measure it," there are no supporting numbers, just general impressions. C'mon, give this topic the rigorous Bayesian treatment. How does the population of YC market-successes compare with…

We don't have enough data yet to prove anything by research paper standards, but that doesn't mean I'm saying nothing. We try consciously to ignore where people went to school; that is not standard practice; and moreover this is something I'm claiming we've changed.

Presumably, your data can only show that it doesn't matter what school you went to, conditional on being accepted by YC.

That is a completely different statement than showing that it doesn't matter what school you went to. Your article appears to me like it is conflating the two.

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#82

Post by corentin »

jey wrote: post #54
corentin wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you fund a few (or at least one) "crazy" startups like Anybots? Because that's probably the coolest thing YC-related! Are you only interested in web stuff, or is it a lack of serious applications? Here are a few "cool" ventures I have in mind: http://www.armadilloaerospace.com http://www.intellasys.net http://www.teslamotors.com

I think it's the scale inherent in attacking these problems that's the main thing stopping YC from funding them. How much of a humanoid robot are you going to get built on 15k and 3 months?

Yes, it may be a factor. I like the idea of large projects undertook by individuals or small teams (because I'm always impressed by human creativity), but they are rare indeed.

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#83

Post by dfranke »

abstractbill wrote: post #31
marrone wrote: post #24

I liked this article, if for the simple fact that it can only help my cause (I graduated, though not from a prestigious school)! The whole time I was going to school I was super impatient to get done so I could actually get working on something real. I was really just after the piece of paper they give you at the end (though I never attended my graduation to get that paper, and the original was sent to the wrong hous…

I am always reminded of a quote from some movie (cant think of the name of it now)... "You spent x thousands of dollars on an education you could have got for 2 dollars in library late fees" Good Will Hunting.

Great movie. It became my nickname when I took a construction job the summer between high school and college :-).

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#84

Post by comatose_kid »

cperciva wrote: post #8

I did my D.Phil. at Oxford University, and my B.Sc. at Simon Fraser University; while SFU is one of Canada's best universities, it clearly doesn't have the stature of Oxford or Harvard. Were the students at Oxford more intelligent than the students at SFU? No. Were they more motivated? No. Are there jobs for which I'd rather hire an Oxford alumnus than an SFU alumnus? Absolutely. The largest advantage of a great univ…

SFU one of Canada's best universities? Care to elaborate? I always thought that Waterloo and University of Toronto were the best.

Of course, Canadian universities seem to vary less in quality compared to institutions in the US.

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#85

Post by npk »

rams wrote: post #10

Peter Norvig in his essay "Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years" says, "If you want, put in four years at a college (or more at a graduate school). This will give you access to some jobs that require credentials, and it will give you a deeper understanding of the field, but if you don't enjoy school, you can (with some dedication) get similar experience on the job. In any case, book learning alone won't be enough.…

Isn't it ironic that Peter Norvig touts this view, but works at google? I've heard that GPA/pedigree are one of the key decisions for hiring?

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#86

Post by npk »

abstractbill wrote: post #30
cperciva wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This essay is about college, not grad school. I tried to make that clear by always using the word college rather than university. Maybe it was not clear enough. Certainly not clear enough for this non-US reader. But of course the word "college" has a different meaning on this side of the border (and an entirely different meaning in Oxford).

A bunch of other education-related words have different meanings on different sides of the pond. For example, UK: You write a dissertation for a masters degree and a thesis for a PhD. US: The opposite. I wonder if the terminology will converge...

In the US you never write a thesis, you write a dissertation (document) based on a thesis (idea.)

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#87

Post by cellis »

npk wrote: post #85
rams wrote: post #10

Peter Norvig in his essay "Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years" says, "If you want, put in four years at a college (or more at a graduate school). This will give you access to some jobs that require credentials, and it will give you a deeper understanding of the field, but if you don't enjoy school, you can (with some dedication) get similar experience on the job. In any case, book learning alone won't be enough.…

Isn't it ironic that Peter Norvig touts this view, but works at google? I've heard that GPA/pedigree are one of the key decisions for hiring?

Actually I think its the problem solving questions that they ask you. I may be mistaken,since I don't work there. Theres an article in businessweek or b2.0 about it right now. Things such as "You are shrunk to the size of a nickel..preserving your density proportional...and put in a blender...you have 5 seconds before the blades start moving - what do you do?

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#88

Post by cperciva »

comatose_kid wrote: post #84
cperciva wrote: post #8

I did my D.Phil. at Oxford University, and my B.Sc. at Simon Fraser University; while SFU is one of Canada's best universities, it clearly doesn't have the stature of Oxford or Harvard. Were the students at Oxford more intelligent than the students at SFU? No. Were they more motivated? No. Are there jobs for which I'd rather hire an Oxford alumnus than an SFU alumnus? Absolutely. The largest advantage of a great univ…

SFU one of Canada's best universities? Care to elaborate? I always thought that Waterloo and University of Toronto were the best. Of course, Canadian universities seem to vary less in quality compared to institutions in the US.

>SFU one of Canada's best universities? Care to elaborate? I always thought that Waterloo and University of Toronto were the best.

For universities with medical programmes, I'd say that UToronto is at the top, closely followed by UBC and McGill. If you're not interested in medicine or law, though, I'd say that Waterloo and SFU are pretty much tied, with UVic coming second.

>Of course, Canadian universities seem to vary less in quality compared to institutions in the US.

I'm sure you could find people who think that any of the universities I've mentioned are Canada's best university; to a certain extent it will depend upon their field. That said, few would dispute that all the above are better than UCalgary, UManitoba, York, or Carleton.

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#89

Post by corentin »

jey wrote: post #51
bharath wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well.. its not so much the vaporware aspect of things... Succeeding in search today is all about scaling. Only the big three have what it takes to build huge data centers. A startup the size of powerset -- not really. Natural language search is something that the average search engine user would consider a "cool feature" at best. The real power of a search engine comes from its ability to cater to the long tail -- wh…

The software involved is more of a key issue. You can always get more machines off the shelf, but you can't just go to Dell.com and place an order for a few killer algorithms. If you have awesome software, you can get funded. IIRC, Powerset is already backed by some big players.

The infrastructure behind Google, Yahoo and even Microsoft is not just a bunch of machines plugged to the same Ethernet switch... They're building datacenters from scratch.

Re: Paul Graham: News from the Front

#90

Post by henning »

dfranke wrote: post #77
henning wrote: post #52

"The curve for faculty is a lot flatter than for students, especially in math and the hard sciences; you have to go pretty far down the list of colleges before you stop finding smart professors in the math department." I wish this would be repeated more often. I've implemented many interesting algorithms based on papers written by people at, like, Louisiana State University. Noname places.

It's also interesting how many universities kick ass in little obscure research niches. I had never even heard of Chalmers until I learned Haskell.

I wouldn't have thought Glasgow even had a university much less one that produced a really nice implementation of a modern functional programming language.
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