Exactly. You pretty much know what you get when you hire a grad. And if it doesn't work out, you can understandably act surprised and say "I know, and he was fr

Exactly. You pretty much know what you get when you hire a grad. And if it doesn't work out, you can understandably act surprised and say "I know, and he was from MIT too! If you break the mold and it works no one cares. If you break the mold and hire some guy without a degree, and it does wrong, you built your own gallows! Freakonomics referred to the Sheepskin effect: 80% of the benefits of getting a degree come from the last semester. Someone with 90% of a degree is worth only 20% more of the gain someone with that last 10% is.