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Palantir Thinks College Might Be a Waste. So It's Hiring High-School Grads

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Re: Palantir Thinks College Might Be a Waste. So It's Hiring High-School Grads

#111

Post by johnneville »

rimbo789 wrote: post #20
mindslight wrote: post #2

Basic anti-intellectualism framed as if it's something revolutionary, but really for the purposes of finding easily-moldable loyal cogs for the coming corporate-totalitarian society. High schoolers have had one class of "Civics" at best, for which they likely just memorized the answers and don't really get the hard-won ideals at play. College is where students start to mature from having to manage their own independe…

Yes this is about hiring folks for low wages and limited ability to leave because they have less transferable skills

the lack of a college degree as a credential may also prove to be a barrier to leaving the company over time

Re: Palantir Thinks College Might Be a Waste. So It's Hiring High-School Grads

#112

Post by beej71 »

vasilzhigilei wrote: post #17

There really needs to be a trade school for software engineering. Not just a short boot camp, either. A rigorous 4 year degree that focuses on industry relevant skills and hands-on projects. The biggest reason I got my 1st job out of college at Cloudflare was because I worked on a lot of personal projects and self learned Go and got experience with Postgres, Redis, and basic frontend. These things were not, or barely…

When I went to a US university in the 90s there was even more extracurricular work needed than now, from my anecdata. I didn't even have any kind of group capstone project. It was understood that the framework college provided was the bare minimum and you needed to push yourself to stand out. And I did, and landed internships, and had no trouble getting hired. Lots of students do the minimum and/or use LLMs to do the work and they have trouble getting jobs for sure. The ones who push and use the school as a springboard get hired even in this downturn.

Re: Palantir Thinks College Might Be a Waste. So It's Hiring High-School Grads

#113

Post by phba »

apical_dendrite wrote: post #66
tastyfreeze wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does a computer science major or engineering degree really need history or humanities classes? Sure, it might make more rounded humans but they are completely unnecessary. However, most colleges require these unnecessary classes to get a STEM degree.

I've been thinking recently about Hannah Arendt's description of Eichmann. He was good at doing his job, but had no ability to understand that he was doing a job that no human being should ever do. I think about this in the context of the DOGE goons, who are so happy to show off their technical skills in the service of dismantling humanitarian aid to starving people. The people that Palantir hires will have tremendou…

Well, it's impossible to know if Eichmann really thought about the ethics of his job. With regards to his trial, it didn't matter anyway. Every captured Nazi official claimed they were just a cog in the machine and had to follow orders. The judges rightfully dismissed this, because otherwise Hitler would have been the only one responsible (how convenient!). They were all put on trial for their specific actions and decisions.

My take from Hannah Arendt's work is that normal people will do evil things if they think they can get away with it.

Re: Palantir Thinks College Might Be a Waste. So It's Hiring High-School Grads

#114

Post by mulmen »

CamelCaseName wrote: post #107
skopje wrote: post #51

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_soldiers_in_Cambodia Visit Phnom Penh (its not pleasant), visit the killing fields and the prisons. There are pictures of the child soldiers that were authorities at prisons, encouraged to report on adults and punish.

What does this have to do with the post?

It's literally the thing Palantir is for.

Re: Palantir Thinks College Might Be a Waste. So It's Hiring High-School Grads

#115

Post by frm88 »

therealmarv wrote: post #37
jupp0r wrote: post #21

https://archive.ph/https://www.wsj.com/business/palantir-thi...

I thought that works but I only see "Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker" It's not the same source but this works https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/palantir...

Your's doesn't work for non-countries. MSN switches to the country you live in, location off or no.

Re: Palantir Thinks College Might Be a Waste. So It's Hiring High-School Grads

#116

Post by jstimpfle »

mindslight wrote: post #95
jstimpfle wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Work has provided me with plenty opportunity to learn, at a foundational level even. It's also a question of how you approach work. Sometimes it's as easy as asking for a little bit of extra time or loudly considering a little side project as promising the insight that's required for the next task. Work has grounded me in such a way that in hindsight I regret staying around uni as long as I did instead of entering th…

Talking about tech we can actually put this in very concrete terms. What shapes of technologies have you been paid to learn? Do they promote decentralized individual liberty like secure p2p communications? Or are they top-down-control corporate-empowering centralizing technologies like webapps and bitcoin? I'd say there is a prominent skew for the types of things you can get paid to work on, because software that cre…

> Or are they top-down-control corporate-empowering centralizing technologies like webapps and bitcoin?

Not at all. Just general smaller projects to hopefully grow and be able to do better work in the future. Desktop GUI, rendering, networking, ...

Re: Palantir Thinks College Might Be a Waste. So It's Hiring High-School Grads

#117

Post by soraminazuki »

godelski wrote: post #97
oa335 wrote: post #4

https://investors.palantir.com/governance/executive-manageme... Four out of the five top executives of Palantir earned degrees from top 10 US universities.

So they're people that can't recognize the factors that led to their own success? Sounds like they have a promising future

You're asking the wrong question. Even if they do recognize the benefits they received from college education, it doesn't mean they want to share those benefits with others. These people have made it abundantly clear on many occasions that they hate sharing, and even more so when it comes to sharing access to quality education.

Re: Palantir Thinks College Might Be a Waste. So It's Hiring High-School Grads

#118

Post by croon »

dlcarrier wrote: post #86
oa335 wrote: post #4

https://investors.palantir.com/governance/executive-manageme... Four out of the five top executives of Palantir earned degrees from top 10 US universities.

It's not hypocritical to regret something you've done.

An illuminating question would be if they're sending their own kids to college or not.

Re: Palantir Thinks College Might Be a Waste. So It's Hiring High-School Grads

#119

Post by ModernMech »

Jcowell wrote: post #41
vasilzhigilei wrote: post #17

There really needs to be a trade school for software engineering. Not just a short boot camp, either. A rigorous 4 year degree that focuses on industry relevant skills and hands-on projects. The biggest reason I got my 1st job out of college at Cloudflare was because I worked on a lot of personal projects and self learned Go and got experience with Postgres, Redis, and basic frontend. These things were not, or barely…

It would depend on the course load. Learning languages and how to use them can easily be encapsulated in capstone, software engineering projects, & internships. The goal of a CS degree, as opposed to a bootcamp, is for students to fully understand in intimate detail the background , history, ethics, & the 5 whys of the tool that they’re using. The way I would design a CS degree is: 1. for the first two years to be ab…

This is exactly how the CS program I teach at is structured.

Re: Palantir Thinks College Might Be a Waste. So It's Hiring High-School Grads

#120

Post by ModernMech »

I teach freshmen through seniors in college. Let me just say good luck with that -- last week I had to explain to a freshman what a "colon" was and where to find it on the keyboard. This person graduated near the top of their HS class. I also had to explain to a Master's student who graduated with an "IT" degree what a "compiler" was. So yeah, Palantir isn't ready for what they're suggesting.

The consequence of "everyone" getting a bachelor's degree is that high schools outsource their work to colleges. Especially since COVID have things gotten worse; the students I'm teaching now were middle schoolers 5 years ago. I will say that the kids are great, but they are severely lacking in fundamentals in a way students even 5 years ago were not.

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