
Silicon Valley is wrong about college - keithpeter
http://threads2.scripting.com/2012/december/siliconValleyIsWrongAboutCollege
======
pg
"Nowadays Silicon Valley says that college education is a waste."

This is false. I know a lot of people in Silicon Valley, and I know no one who
says that. Even Peter Thiel, who is arguably the iconic college skeptic, only
says that college might not be optimal for everyone.

~~~
davewiner
Well, it didn't say "Everyone Paul Graham knows in Silicon Valley says that,
exactly."

In an attention-deprived environment, we write in shorthand sometimes. I don't
have to tell you everything I read that led me to that belief, you can use
your own judgement and look it up yourself.

You know I sat in the audience when you interviewed Zuck a couple of months
ago, and I listened carefully to what you and he said about his experience at
Harvard. Interestingly, I was at Harvard at the same time, and I know that a
lot of the stories he's telling are not true, about what the adults were doing
there at at the time. I was one of the adults. We were doing some pretty
important stuff too, it turns out. :-)

Anyway the point is this -- we can all learn from each other. It would be
great if you read past the first thing that turned you off and listen to the
whole schpiel. I gave you and Zuck that much, I spent a few hours of my life
to find out what you thought, even though I was sure a fair amount of it was
wrong.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Dave, it would be more accurate to say that a lot has been written about the
relative merits of a college education with respect to startups, but that is
not evidence for a claim that "Silicon Valley says that college education is a
waste."

It would be accurate to say that the question has come up, and been answered
many times. As a simple exercise, scan CrunchBase, take the founders, scrape
LinkedIn, and find the ones without college degrees. The bulk of people who
are funded have college degrees, and if you assume that 'funding' is a proxy
for 'values' then by that simple experiment your claim would be disproved.

It would be accurate to say that certain investment agencies, of which Peter
Thiel is perhaps the most visible, have decided to weight the value a college
education less than other investors, but Peter doesn't represent the "Silicon
Valley" any more than Paul does.

The article you link [1] doesn't say anything about not valuing a college
education, rather it says a lot about a college trying to maximize its
endowment. Your comment about Harvard wanting to "participate in the success
of the next Gates ..." isn't even in the linked text, you called it out of
some other unmentioned source.

It is a perfectly reasonable argument to make that the people who advocate
that a college degree has no value, are wrong. But "Silicon Valley" is not
those people.

[1] [http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/1/27/experiment-
fund-...](http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/1/27/experiment-fund-seas-
investment/)

------
japhyr
The college experience is still pretty worthwhile, but the consequences of
taking out loans in order to attend college are gettin uglier.

My wife and I are both working in service fields - I am a teacher, and she is
a counselor. We are both good at what we do. But we are at our income
ceilings. We are paying as much in student loan payments as we are in housing
costs. some of my colleagues will be in debt for the rest of their lives.

Going to college is not the same straightforward decision it used to be.

~~~
jpdevereaux
This "income ceiling" you mention brings up a potentially interesting idea -
why not scale the cost of college according to the expected value of your
major? I know that in a broader sense this happens already, as "better"
schools tend to be more expensive, but perhaps (to use a cliché example) an
English degree and a CS degree shouldn't cost the same.

~~~
schwabacher
I think this is a bad idea - salaries paid to different fields are a good
(although imperfect) way of measuring the value of those skills to society.

If we subsidize education towards less valuable skills at the expense of the
most valuable, we end up discouraging people from going into the most needed
professions.

~~~
japhyr
"less valuable skills"

That's a pretty loaded statement. Teacher pay is based on years in the system
because it is so difficult to measure individual teacher effectiveness,
without incentivizing people to pay more attention to the "good" students and
marginalize those who are difficult to teach.

Salaries are largely dependent on how much economic return the position
provides to the employer, not on how valuable the skills are to society.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_Teacher pay is based on years in the system because it is so difficult to
measure individual teacher effectiveness, without incentivizing people to pay
more attention to the "good" students and marginalize those who are difficult
to teach._

It's politically difficult, not statistically difficult. Statistically VAM
does a great job.

Paying attention to the "good" students vs the difficult to teach ones is not
enforced by every objective measurement system, it's purely a function of how
you compute the teacher's score. There are many choices:

    
    
        # focus on the best, ignore the rest
        student_scores.max() 
    
        # focus on the worst, ignore the rest
        student_scores.min() 
    
        # Focus on the cheapest improvements possible
        # independent of whether best or worst
        student_scores.mean()
    
        # Somewhere in between mean and max
        pow(student_scores,K).mean() 
        # 1 < K < infinity
    
        #Minimize inequality
        student_scores.variance()

------
mpweiher
I also find it worrisome that what are effectively lottery winners are
supposed to be role models, be it Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg or, for that
matter, rock and movie stars.

Winning the lottery is not a good goal to set for a society or a generation
(cf. Kant).

~~~
clicks
> (cf. Kant)

Sorry, but what do you mean there?

~~~
mpweiher
Reference to the categorical imperative.

„Handle nur nach derjenigen Maxime, durch die du zugleich wollen kannst, dass
sie ein allgemeines Gesetz werde.“

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that
it should become a universal law."

Everyone can't win the lottery.

------
newishuser
Silicon Valley is not a thing with opinions. You can't call an inanimate
object wrong in this way. What you meant to say was, "I believe a College
education is important." But that title isn't inflammatory and eye catching.

Anyway, I think the greater argument isn't, "Drop out of college and become
Bill Gates." It's "College tuition prices have gotten so out of hand that it
might no longer be worth what you pay for."

Going to a private 4 year can easily cost you more than 100k. With 100k and
the right motivation, you can start any number of businesses and teach
yourself more about entrepreneurship than you could have in a 4 year business
program _and_ you have the chance of it making you money instead of just being
a purchase.

------
TillE
Almost nobody has the drive necessary for completely unguided self-education,
and even those people will inevitably miss some important things.

I believe that a college education (lectures and assignments, at least) _can_
be replicated online. I just don't see that anyone's done a particularly good
job of it yet. There are lots of bits and pieces floating around, but not much
overall structure.

~~~
keithpeter
As a teacher, I like on-line resources as _granular_ as possible so I can
remix them and present them to students. My practice is then the 'glue' that
sticks the bits together for the particular individuals I'm working for.

Do you think that direct contact with a teacher (motivation and confidence
building in the case of Winer's post) can be replaced by some other model?

------
swalsh
As someone who left college early in favor of a career, take it from me, its a
hell of a lot easier to learn things in school than outside of it.

------
ojr
I am pursuing a degree in CS but im also a Javascript Hacker out of the
classroom, (wrongly hating Java by default, I blame the community). I thought
I would struggle coming into a Java class because "Java is to Javascript as
Ham is to Hamster" blah blah blah. College forced me to see the similarities,
for-loops, dot/bracket notation, using a library to import certain methods
etc... I would never have drill myself to learn these if I didn't go to school
because I would have stayed away from Java as far as possible but I'm glad I
did. It also gave me extra confidence and self-validation that the code I
write works kind of like Test Driven Development ;)

Everyone should go to as much education they can afford or what they seem
necessary, and learning out of classroom is important as well

------
yummyfajitas
The idea that education will address the problem of the low information voter
is nonsensical.

The probability of your vote affecting the outcome is too low to be
represented in double precision arithmetic (last time I did the calculation).
Therefore, you have no incentive to vote correctly.

Even if education gives you the tools to become a high information voter, why
would you bother? Just vote for whichever candidate gives you $0.01 worth of
self congratulation about not being a racist, having good family values, or
whatever.

~~~
dullcrisp
I'm not sure I understand your point. What chance of personally deciding the
outcome of an election do you need to have before voting is worth your time?
50%?

One votes for the same reasons one refrains from littering in a public park,
or gives a few dollars to a charity, or donates blood, or contributes to a
Kickstarter campaign, or volunteers to go to war, or pays taxes. Not mainly
because of the chance that your individual contribution will make a difference
in and of itself, but to do your part in making society better for everyone.
From the perspective of the whole social organism, if you refuse to do these
things because your individual contributions don't make a direct difference,
you're one of the harmful cells.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_What chance of personally deciding the outcome of an election do you need to
have before voting is worth your time? 50%?_

You need P(affecting outcome) x (value of positive outcome) > cost of voting.

Even assuming the value of a positive outcome is vastly bigger than the size
of the world economy (e.g. $10^15, maybe $10^20), P(affecting outcome) is so
fantastically low in any state with political leanings that you might as well
not bother.

Littering in a public park is a separate issue - the effect of littering is
cumulative, whereas the effect of voting is based on a threshold. Your litter
makes the park incrementally worse. Donating blood does make a significant
measurable difference - one particular person gets your unit of blood, and
this helps them avoid death.

A dollar value can be assigned to all the things we've mentioned. Donating
blood is worth multiple dollars, littering in a park is probably harmful to
the tune of a few pennies. The dollar value of your vote is so small that
double precision floats treat it as 0.

~~~
josinalvo
We should consider that the process of choosing who to vote to has some other
benefits (other than the small probability that your vote is the vote that
changes the outcome)

Mostly, there are two things to do before voting: 1) decide your position on
multiple issues 2) think about how much the implementation of the system
allows your positions to be communicated/counted (so some positions become
more important because the system will allow them to have an effect)

both of these actions can be beneficial (and much so). 1 means thinking about
life in society 2 means thinking about effective ways of agregating knowledge
and preferences in a society

you could think of the elections as a holiday celebrating the fact that we
live in a society, and inviting to think about it

------
jmohsenin
I recently decided not to attend UC Berkeley in favor of starting my career in
product design. A lot has already been covered here, but a couple points:

> Got a chance to reboot my education, which was something I really needed to
> do.

Your entire personal anecdote is based off of you dropping out of high school.
One could argue that if you had completed high school, there would be less
value in college for you.

> I don't think Gates and Zuckerberg are good role models for young people.

You don't think Bill Gates is a good role model for young people? What's a
better role model then one of the world's richest people trying to solve giant
social issues? Gates should be a role model to all rich people! Zuck's not
there yet, but his recent charitable giving suggests that later in his life
he'll follow the same path.

> Most kids who try to be the next billionaire entrepreneur will fail.

When did being an entrepreneur become all about making money? Of all the
college dropouts-turned SV kids I know (including myself) money is never the
primary driver.

> And if we push the kids toward that, we will lead them to believe,
> mistakenly, that it's enough to create a massive fortune. It is not enough.
> And if they fail to create the fortune, according to this standard, they
> will have failed in life.

What 'standard' are you referring to? I think a lot college students these
days understand that money doesn't equal happiness.

I think the author is a bit misguided as to the reasons behind some kids
choose not to attend college. Personally, I'm devoted to product design, learn
better on my own/with a small team, and affiliate strongly with SV culture.
I'm not worried that I'm not going to be 'educated' – I see that as a ten-
year, twenty-year, or even lifetime goal.

------
g2e
As a current college sophomore, I agree, education is important. However, I
strongly believe that a degree does not define a person as educated. As long
as you continuously have a general thirst for knowledge and act on it, you'll
build your way to becoming an educated individual.

~~~
keithpeter
Excellent, now what part does _mathematics_ play in your model of education?

PS: I have learned to respect craft skills over the years. Those skills do not
normally earn degree level certification in the UK (exceptions being surgeons,
opticians and dentists).

~~~
g2e
Depends on the flavour of the mathematics being taught. If it's a
computational calculus course where all you do is memorize integration
patterns so you can integrate a boatload of functions, then it's not very
beneficial. However if it's a logic course, where you learn how to prove
theorems and understand what a proof really is, it would help you in any
field. As long as the course doesn't train you to become a computer than I
believe it's beneficial to one's education.

------
pcote
Oh, this topic again. What the heck...

>Nowadays Silicon Valley says that college education is a waste.

I wasn't aware of Silicon Valley being of one voice on this matter. Is there a
representative spokesperson I don't know about?

>I find this disturbing. I want them to educate better citizens, not richer
business people.

Personally, I'm not aware of how college made me a better citizen.

> But first comes the person, not the bank account.

I am not a better person than someone who didn't or couldn't go to college.

>When you look at the problems our democracy has, probably the biggest one is
the "low information voter."

After the grade pressure was off, a potential job was the only thing that
could get me to research anything. Later on, I learned to let my own curiosity
have a say in what I looked into. I think I became a lot more "educated" when
I got to that point.

------
stared
I would like to defend Silicon Valley a bit.

More and more education is out current needs. And it will never catch up, as a
huge system, with many constrains, large inertia etc. A programme which was
perfect (say) 30 years ago may be not longer up to date - when jobs and
technologies change rapidly.

Additionally, now almost everything programming-related is on the Internet.
See <http://xkcd.com/519/> for a comment on usefulness of formal education.

Sure, when someone's dream is to become "the next Gates/Jobs/Zuckerberg" it's
not the right motivation to quit education. But I know a lot of smart people
who dropped out because of their IT work, or company - and their motivation is
not unlike one's who finished their degrees.

------
munger
I think college, aside from a few useful things you learn and problems with
student debt - if nothing else is a good education for playing a game (and
learning some discipline). You have rules and constraints - structure. You can
determine what the point of the game is.

For example, the point could be - to get the most A's (high marks) with the
least amount of effort and the most free time left over for fun. You don't
have to take school itself seriously, but it is similar to a career where it
pays to play the game.

------
sunwooz
It doesn't make sense to go to college when everything you learn in college
can be learned in a book. Also, some subjects just can't be taught in
classrooms-- Foreign languages for example, is pretty dismal in colleges. I've
yet to meet someone who actually speaks a foreign language who studied for
nearly 8 years in high school and college. Education is evolving and we
shouldn't cling on to this archaic method of learning when there are plenty of
better ways to learn.

------
tthomas48
It us bizarre to me since the most in demand employees are basically high tech
liberal arts. A mix of engineering, art, psychology, and performance is pretty
much the killer skill set right now (and I'd imagine in the future. My BA in
theater and dance mixed with programming and troubleshooting skills has always
been an easy sell when interviewing.

------
stratosvoukel
In Europe the knowledge you need to be a educated voter and citizen is
supposed to be taught at high school. Most european countries dont have
generic education lessons at all. I dont think the purpose of colleges should
be making someone a good citizen, that is the role of public education that
everyone receives.

------
switz
Seriously, this post again? These are not black and white issues like every
article on HN would lead you to believe.

~~~
keithpeter
I think you are right, I live in a world of shades of grey. Now, what
_wighting_ would you give mathematical knowledge in the education of children?
Say the weighting factors for all subjects added to 1.00.

------
AZDave
So, if I pay into Social Security and expect to see something when I retire,
but am opposed to government control of, say education, or the postal service,
I'm an ignorant hypocrite?

I guess Dave missed the lessons in college on informal logic because he would
have learned about strawman arguments and the part to whole fallacy.

------
ethioblog
I mostly agree with you, Dave. I wish you included one more dimension to your
thought, the cost of it. Is college education something to pursue at any cost?
What is the role of online, self study type of learning? My thinking is:
college education is important but NOT at any cost.

------
namank
Disagree with the post although never before seen sex and accounting mentioned
in the same sentence or on the same side of the comma.

If they have the kind of drive at an early age, school only gets in the way.
But school is very important for the dreamers who just talk.

------
keithpeter
" _Got a chance to reboot my education, which was something I really needed to
do. I had a professor in my freshman year of college who showed me that my
mind could do math. And from there, I took charge._ "

How important do we think Maths education is?

~~~
voidlogic
Very?

If I consider the math courses I took in college undergrad (I was a C-S major)
there are some that are useful in everyday day life like pre-Calc (aka.
algebra + trig) when I build a new deck or figure out how much grass seed to
buy. Others courses such as Calc I and II are useful in understanding the
issues and trends around me, both business and political. But the vast
majority are valuable to me every day as I work on systems software:
Mathematical Logic and Discrete Math, Graph Theory, Linear Algebra with
Differential Eq & Intro to the Theory of computation.

How can you not think Mathematics is important to tech?

~~~
davewiner
My studies in math led me to graph theory, before I took any Comp Sci. So
yeah, I'd say my math was pretty helpful.

It also stretches the mind. It's like saying weight training is useful if
you're going to be a basketball player, even though there's no point in a game
where you all stop and lift weights. :-)

When you learn how to prove a theorem you are learning how to debug a program.

------
enra
I don't understand how college helps "low information voters". I would guess
those people don't go to college or can't afford it anyway.

If you want to help educate people, make it free or almost free, like Khan or
startups in the Valley are trying to do.

------
PagingCraig
Your blog post is all over the place.

------
001sky
_When you look at the problems our democracy has, probably the biggest one is
the "low information voter." The ignorant electorate that says they want
government out of our lives, but keep your hands off Medicare and Social
Security, for example._

== Puhleeeeeeez.

~~~
keithpeter
I live in the UK, so I may not be up with US politics, and I know Winer has
political views. Are you saying that Winer underestimates the median voter, or
that Medicare is wrong?

PS: I suspect you are being down-voted because you are not making your meaning
clear.

~~~
001sky
Regardless of policy, step back and look at the logic:

"The biggest problem with our democracy is that [everyone esle] is stupid"

This is the worst kind of ignorance, generally speaking.

