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I met the head of one of the largest French corporations once, and was pretty shocked at the degree of elitism, hierarchy, and concern about prestigious schools

I met the head of one of the largest French corporations once, and was pretty shocked at the degree of elitism, hierarchy, and concern about prestigious schools... SV is bottom up - you hire smart people and let them collaborate freely. The typical French approach is too silo the people from prestigious schools from the rest of the organization, so the 'smart' ones can work on ideas that the rest will implement. It's a great way to limit the understanding of the designers (no hands in the mud) and limit the total utility of design. You end up solving the problems of the elites, only, since no one else is in the room.

forty 3y ago
It is true in some fields and in large corporations and especially in former public and semi public corporations. However in computer engineering startups for example, solving technical tests and/or a nice GitHub can open you the same doors as an engineering degree. There are very elite engineering schools (mostly l'école polytechnique and the ENS which in kind of another beast) which are so selective that people from there are IMO in a different league from other engineers (not necessarily in a good way btw)