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

wsj.com

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

#31

Post by johannes1234321 »

mikert89 wrote: post #16

Highly intelligent kids at 18 are ready for the real world. Its a waste of time to make them memorize random subjects

Some things however require experience, not just intelligence.

Also working on a surveillance machine should have a proven system of values to be aware where boundaries are being overstepped ... Oh wait, maybe that's the point.

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

#32

Post by rimbo789 »

simonsarris wrote: post #10

My company has exclusively hired interns out of high school, including myself, since the mid 2000s. Every single hire was an intern first, either as a junior or senior in HS. The board is now 2/3rds former interns (I'm one of them), 1/3rds original founders. It works extremely well. Any high school AP CS teacher we ask is delighted to send us their best students. We basically get to interview for 3-5 years during sum…

Why would anyone accept such a terrible deal

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

#33

Post by foldr »

mikert89 wrote: post #16

Highly intelligent kids at 18 are ready for the real world. Its a waste of time to make them memorize random subjects

Intellectually yes, but it's surprising how hard a lot of 18 years olds fail at basic adulting. I've been indirectly involved with apprenticeship schemes here in the UK that place 18 year olds at various companies as software engineers. There's no problem finding 18 year olds who are smart and can code, but the challenge lies in getting them to consistently show up to work five days a week. It's doable, but it requires a lot more mentoring and support than you might intuitively expect. Standard corporate work environments just aren't very flexible on this.

Now, maybe this particular scheme is targeting a small number of exceptional individuals who won't have a problem with this stuff. But it would be a big mistake to assume that a typical smart 18 year old is ready for a typical corporate job.

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

#34

Post by apical_dendrite »

beefnugs wrote: post #5

Also its around the age you might start learning empathy, dont want that

This is a really important point. A lot of the "locked in" young types that I've seen in the startup ecosystem have very little experience of how the world works, combined with a tremendous arrogance about their own capabilities. They see the wealth and the power that some people have acquired in tech, and they associate that with success with goodness - or they become completely amoral.

I'm not sure how much these people would actually learn in college, but the idea is that some exposure to the humanities and the arts and to people who have different aspirations and life experiences would give them some interest in considering the consequences and moral worth of their actions.

Maybe that doesn't actually happen and these people will always be amoral. But that's the hope.

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

#35

Post by master-lincoln »

flufluflufluffy wrote: post #22
simonsarris wrote: post #10

My company has exclusively hired interns out of high school, including myself, since the mid 2000s. Every single hire was an intern first, either as a junior or senior in HS. The board is now 2/3rds former interns (I'm one of them), 1/3rds original founders. It works extremely well. Any high school AP CS teacher we ask is delighted to send us their best students. We basically get to interview for 3-5 years during sum…

So you get 3-5 years of unpaid labor out of every employee first? Radical man

You don't pay interns fairly? Radical man...

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

#36

Post by Avicebron »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #19
foobarian wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> dumb as rocks > working on drivers Yup, checks out :-D

In defense of foobarian AFAIK driver code is famously the lowest quality code of just about any domain, even worse than academic code. The software is written by cost cutting hardware companies.

Everyone who has had to work with printers in a enterprise/production environment knows this... I'm amazed it's an industry that hasn't been disrupted. cough

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

#37

Post by therealmarv »

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...

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

#38

Post by simonsarris »

flufluflufluffy wrote: post #22
simonsarris wrote: post #10

My company has exclusively hired interns out of high school, including myself, since the mid 2000s. Every single hire was an intern first, either as a junior or senior in HS. The board is now 2/3rds former interns (I'm one of them), 1/3rds original founders. It works extremely well. Any high school AP CS teacher we ask is delighted to send us their best students. We basically get to interview for 3-5 years during sum…

So you get 3-5 years of unpaid labor out of every employee first? Radical man

We pay the interns. Is that not usual where you are?
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