4 ms·

15 years ago, freshly equipped with an Ivy League degree and a PhD, I was staggered to interact with so many senior executives that had exactly 0 degrees.

jillesvangurp 4y ago
A degree is something that a person who conforms to the norms aspires to. Nothing wrong with that, I have a PhD. I got it in the middle of the dot com boom. It's a nice conversation piece but otherwise has zero relevance to what I do. Instead of getting rid in one of the bubble companies or taking a fat salary solving the y2k problem for some boring consulting company, I went off and did research. Then I pivoted to become a software engineer, and I went back to doing research at an industrial research institute. And via a brief stint doing some more software development I ended up being a startup entrepreneur in my late thirties. That was ten years ago. In Germany where I live it's an almost automatic salary booster, which is nice except I don't get a salary because I'm a freelance consultant and a bootstrapped startup CTO (might get a salary out of that soon). It's what I did after I got my degree that enables me to charge premium rates when I'm freelancing. Entrepreneurial mindset and straight career paths via some big name university are two things. One requires taking risk, the other is basically about risk averse careers. Big name universities, followed by big name companies and big title career paths. Again nothing wrong with that. But not a likely path for starting your own company, which is risky.
- shapefrog 4y ago
  More to my point, the assumption that every executive is a white ivy league educated male is as accurate as the assumption that everyone in Silicon Valley dropped out of their CS degree at Stamford after a year.
- the_only_law 4y ago
  > A degree is something that a person who conforms to the norms aspires to. Nothing wrong with that, I have a PhD. Yeah, but I’d expect an executive to be that sort of person.
  - EddySchauHai 4y ago
    Wouldn't someone who conforms to the norms tend to become the average of that environment?
    - jillesvangurp 4y ago
      Depends if you work in a change resistant, conservative environment; or a competitive company that needs to be ruthless and non dogmatic about what it does, why it does it, how it does it, etc. Very different career paths.

jillesvangurp 4y ago

A degree is something that a person who conforms to the norms aspires to. Nothing wrong with that, I have a PhD. I got it in the middle of the dot com boom. It's a nice conversation piece but otherwise has zero relevance to what I do. Instead of getting rid in one of the bubble companies or taking a fat salary solving the y2k problem for some boring consulting company, I went off and did research. Then I pivoted to become a software engineer, and I went back to doing research at an industrial research institute. And via a brief stint doing some more software development I ended up being a startup entrepreneur in my late thirties. That was ten years ago. In Germany where I live it's an almost automatic salary booster, which is nice except I don't get a salary because I'm a freelance consultant and a bootstrapped startup CTO (might get a salary out of that soon). It's what I did after I got my degree that enables me to charge premium rates when I'm freelancing. Entrepreneurial mindset and straight career paths via some big name university are two things. One requires taking risk, the other is basically about risk averse careers. Big name universities, followed by big name companies and big title career paths. Again nothing wrong with that. But not a likely path for starting your own company, which is risky.

shapefrog 4y ago
More to my point, the assumption that every executive is a white ivy league educated male is as accurate as the assumption that everyone in Silicon Valley dropped out of their CS degree at Stamford after a year.
the_only_law 4y ago
> A degree is something that a person who conforms to the norms aspires to. Nothing wrong with that, I have a PhD. Yeah, but I’d expect an executive to be that sort of person.
- EddySchauHai 4y ago
  Wouldn't someone who conforms to the norms tend to become the average of that environment?
  - jillesvangurp 4y ago
    Depends if you work in a change resistant, conservative environment; or a competitive company that needs to be ruthless and non dogmatic about what it does, why it does it, how it does it, etc. Very different career paths.