I don't understand what point he's trying to make.
For one, he starts off by talking about some specific school, but very few people have ever claimed that going to some specific ivy-league school makes you a great programmer. In fact, I often see people claim the opposite, especially in startups. You could certainly write an article about Google's bad hiring practices, but that doesn't seem to be the point of this article - he pulls up two examples, and then completely moves on from that point.
Second, he misses the point of looking for people who are self-led. It's not to get people who produce good code - it's to get people to can produce good code, but can also _think for themselves_. And what better way to get people to think for themselves, than by looking for people already doing it.
Anecdotal, but I often interact with people who went to elite schools. A large number of them are convinced that the world is run by their classmates. It's sometimes tiring to hear, especially as having that kind of network does help. Of course every company wants the "best", and credentials are a shortcut to satisfying that. False positives are more of a danger than false negatives.
There are plenty of exceptions to this elitism -- I recently found out that a long-time coworker not only went to a top school but is also a tenured professor. It doesn't show. :)
This post is by an undergrad at a state school, and I gather the main purpose is to get employers interested in him, and probably to vent some frustration against the very real blindspot that many recruiters and employers have. It's not intended to be an essay for the ages.
The world is run by their classmates. That's a real problem. If you went to a middle of the road state school (in my case in the south), then you face a lot of additional challenges that my Stanford buddies do not.
I have a real win on my resume. I can point to products that I've built and things that I've done. I'm even a published author. Yet when it comes to fund-raising or trying to find a leadership role there is a definite boys-club that is difficult for me to break into. For a great many investors they see my education and the rest just doesn't matter.
It means I've had to swim faster and work far harder than these top-tier grads. Even today, more than a decade out of college, it remains an issue. I'll continue to show through my work that I'm a top-tier talent, and hopefully one day that will be enough all on its own.
tldr; It was worth every penny if you went to Stanford, I wish I had known that when I was 18.
"tldr; It was worth every penny if you went to Stanford, I wish I had known that when I was 18."
I wish I had known that when I was 14/15 and cruising through high school, buying the feel-good talk about "paying that much for a top-name education wouldn't be worth it anyway." So instead I got a very good education (you get out of it what you put into it, after all) that actually cost more in practice than a heavily-subsidized-by-the-school Ivy one and yet comes with a lower-value degree.
I'm happy where I am, so I'm not complaining. But the system is fairly screwy.
I think his point is that you have to have money to be a rock star because even if you are amazingly good at {music,programming} you still need food and shelter before you can practice your craft.
Perhaps we're talking to different people then. It's something I regularly observe: Good programmers went to Ivy Leagues, Stanford, etc. The rest are just mediocre.
For one, he starts off by talking about some specific school, but very few people have ever claimed that going to some specific ivy-league school makes you a great programmer. In fact, I often see people claim the opposite, especially in startups. You could certainly write an article about Google's bad hiring practices, but that doesn't seem to be the point of this article - he pulls up two examples, and then completely moves on from that point.
Second, he misses the point of looking for people who are self-led. It's not to get people who produce good code - it's to get people to can produce good code, but can also _think for themselves_. And what better way to get people to think for themselves, than by looking for people already doing it.