1. You don’t have to pay Google :-)
2. Google packages the on-device navigation and places experience for ridesharing, while this repo is focused on the location tracking aspect and how that experience is managed in the cloud.
I would definitely expect a senior manager in a tech company to know that! Keeping an eye on trends, competitors, influencers, big shakeups is a must for doing their job.
We are a 3 year old startup and have had product/marketing/ops in San Francisco and engineering in Bangalore all this while. We use Google Docs power users and spontaneous communication happens through Slack and calls. Between these, most of our knowledge sharing needs are covered. Though as the team grows, Slack is becoming too noisy making it easy to miss messages, so we are rethinking that a bit.
Part of a VC's job is advertisement (for their portfolio companies) ;-) However, in this case I couldn't find a past association between Flatiron school & Fred Wilson and/or Union Square ventures, so this article seems to be expressing genuine appreciation for the model. Maybe he likes them so much that he will invest in them in the next round :D
To understand the cost of education argument, notice the catch lies here: "teaching students skills that are directly related to job requirements." How much time of a traditional 4 year college is spent on skills that a grad would actually need or use? A lot of it is just archaic legacy. If you take those out, then the cost of education might actually compare favorably for bootcamps.
An additional (or alternate perspective) is that bootcamps are a supplement to, rather than a replacement for traditional education. Bootcamps teach hard job skills, whereas college teaches soft & social skills. Either way, they are a welcome addition!
How much time of a traditional 4 year college is spent on skills that a grad would actually need or use? A lot of it is just archaic legacy.
I thought it was moe that universities are meant to promote general enlightenment as much as (or, primarily rather than) useful trade skills. With a fair bit of confusion coming in where some skills (engineering, S/W development) depend heavily on (parts of) said enlightenment (math, how people think).
That was always a big argument when I was in and around a university computer science department: how much time you spend on "general enlightenment" topics like linear algebra and how much to spend on specific, valuable skills, like x86 assembly.
If there would be 1000x flatirons pumping out graduates, startups would have greater access to lower cost developers, which i'm sure would make VC's job more profitable,and easier.
