> Or, who are literal geniuses but don't happen to have MIT, Stanford or UC Berkeley on their resume. Capable of research and invention, but no PhD. People who

> Or, who are literal geniuses but don't happen to have MIT, Stanford or UC Berkeley on their resume. Capable of research and invention, but no PhD. People who just were never discovered, mentored and given the opportunity to get on a rocket ship. Raw talent sitting there writing CRUD apps for some dopey company just limping along, who sometimes don't even know how good they are. I've scouted smaller/less known schools with great CS programs, so it definitely can be done. I know enough French to be dangerous so they sent me to the Polytechniques (Montreal, Paris, Swiss...) and got a great signal to noise ratio there. But it's a plane ride instead of an Uber... > Better to just look for things like: grit, coachability/potential, focus, ability to reason about things across many orders of magnitude, ability keep a lot of aspects of a complex system visualized, and generally whether they can understand problems and come up with solutions. None of these involve playing "algorithm gotcha" or solving leetcode puzzles. A degree from a solid school is a good predictor of that. Algo questions are used because it's a common vocabulary, everyone who matters just knows this stuff and it's possible to solve a problem in 45 minutes (vs giving a 2hour+ take home assignment). And it's really good at spotting people who, no matter how long you give them, won't be able to write a single line of code.