5 ms·

> The 26-year-old Stanford grad is one of some 150 people the young company employs to keep the site clean—out of a total head count of 850. I wonder if a Stan

by chime 18y ago

> The 26-year-old Stanford grad is one of some 150 people the young company employs to keep the site clean—out of a total head count of 850. I wonder if a Stanford degree was a necessity for such a job.

myoung8 18y ago
It's a tough economy in which to find a job and Stanford doesn't have any pre-professional majors. We should all consider ourselves lucky that we have a skill-set that is in high demand.
- neilc 18y ago
  > We should all consider ourselves lucky that we have a skill-set that is in high demand. I don't think it's really "luck": if you love what you do and you make sure you are very good at it, you're going to be in pretty good shape no matter the economy. Outside of technology, there are many different fields that reward skilled workers: law, medicine, engineering, etc.
kurtosis 18y ago
Hey as long as he's not breaking a law, it's a free country he can do whatever he pleases. I think I understand the origin of this sentiment - $tanford has people beating down it's doors to get in and 10 ambitious amazing kids were rejected so that this guy, who ends up doing a job anyone could do, could go. I for one hope he ignores all of this social pressure to do what other people want him to do with his life. It sounds like there's an attitude of noblesse oblige towards smart people with prestigious degrees here. Give the guy (and everyone else) a break.
- endtime 18y ago
  I'm with you on this...there's a perception that everyone at Stanford should work for Google or start a company, and I'm pretty sure Stanford grads do those things disproportionately, but I've met plenty of people at Stanford who wouldn't get hired by Google and aren't interested in a startup. You only hear about the Stanford grads who do cool stuff, and you hear about Stanford people doing that more than you hear about other people doing it...but don't let that lead you into thinking that everyone at Stanford does cool stuff.
neilk 18y ago
Maintaining community standards on an international site with 100M+ members is a complex job. Even if you could Turk out 99.5% of the cases there will be hundreds of borderline issues every day that need more careful evaluation. To really do it right you'd need a background in anthropology, sexuality, psychology, and international law. Such a degree program will probably never exist, so you need to go for a generally smart and adaptable person. Is that person necessarily a Stanford grad? Certainly they are smart and driven, but personally I'd look for the person who was more exploratory and meandering in their self-education. My guess is that would negatively correlate with a Stanford degree.
- mikeyur 18y ago
  Since when do you need a background in anthropology to decide whether an image has nipple showing or not?
  - neilk 18y ago
    Some lower-level employee just banned the entire Outer Limpopo Breastfeeding Advocacy discussion group because there are a couple of photos where the nipple is peeking out around a baby's mouth. There's a couple of protest groups starting up; some are angry and say that breastfeeding isn't against the TOS at all, since it's not porn. You are becoming a laughingstock among your more liberal members. Some members are posting even more breastfeeding images, in solidarity, generating even more complaints. Another is claiming that this is a continuation of colonialism, since your company accepts advertisements from Nestle, and that your executives just want to see little Limpoponese babies die because more mothers accepted the use of formula instead of breast milk. Apparently this is a huge issue of national identity in Limpopo, blaming infant mortality on formula-pushing conglomerates. The Limpoponese health minister denounced your company in a prepared statement while your entire team in North America was asleep. Six hours later, it's front page news in Europe. What do you do, mikeyur? WHAT DO YOU DO?
    - mikeyur 18y ago
      They obviously need to have some measures in place - of what is acceptable and what isn't. That doesn't mean you need a degree to do the job. And I'm an SEO/Marketing Consultant.

by chime 18y ago

myoung8 18y ago

It's a tough economy in which to find a job and Stanford doesn't have any pre-professional majors. We should all consider ourselves lucky that we have a skill-set that is in high demand.

neilc 18y ago
> We should all consider ourselves lucky that we have a skill-set that is in high demand. I don't think it's really "luck": if you love what you do and you make sure you are very good at it, you're going to be in pretty good shape no matter the economy. Outside of technology, there are many different fields that reward skilled workers: law, medicine, engineering, etc.

kurtosis 18y ago

Hey as long as he's not breaking a law, it's a free country he can do whatever he pleases. I think I understand the origin of this sentiment - $tanford has people beating down it's doors to get in and 10 ambitious amazing kids were rejected so that this guy, who ends up doing a job anyone could do, could go. I for one hope he ignores all of this social pressure to do what other people want him to do with his life. It sounds like there's an attitude of noblesse oblige towards smart people with prestigious degrees here. Give the guy (and everyone else) a break.

endtime 18y ago
I'm with you on this...there's a perception that everyone at Stanford should work for Google or start a company, and I'm pretty sure Stanford grads do those things disproportionately, but I've met plenty of people at Stanford who wouldn't get hired by Google and aren't interested in a startup. You only hear about the Stanford grads who do cool stuff, and you hear about Stanford people doing that more than you hear about other people doing it...but don't let that lead you into thinking that everyone at Stanford does cool stuff.

neilk 18y ago

Maintaining community standards on an international site with 100M+ members is a complex job. Even if you could Turk out 99.5% of the cases there will be hundreds of borderline issues every day that need more careful evaluation. To really do it right you'd need a background in anthropology, sexuality, psychology, and international law. Such a degree program will probably never exist, so you need to go for a generally smart and adaptable person. Is that person necessarily a Stanford grad? Certainly they are smart and driven, but personally I'd look for the person who was more exploratory and meandering in their self-education. My guess is that would negatively correlate with a Stanford degree.

mikeyur 18y ago
Since when do you need a background in anthropology to decide whether an image has nipple showing or not?
- neilk 18y ago
  Some lower-level employee just banned the entire Outer Limpopo Breastfeeding Advocacy discussion group because there are a couple of photos where the nipple is peeking out around a baby's mouth. There's a couple of protest groups starting up; some are angry and say that breastfeeding isn't against the TOS at all, since it's not porn. You are becoming a laughingstock among your more liberal members. Some members are posting even more breastfeeding images, in solidarity, generating even more complaints. Another is claiming that this is a continuation of colonialism, since your company accepts advertisements from Nestle, and that your executives just want to see little Limpoponese babies die because more mothers accepted the use of formula instead of breast milk. Apparently this is a huge issue of national identity in Limpopo, blaming infant mortality on formula-pushing conglomerates. The Limpoponese health minister denounced your company in a prepared statement while your entire team in North America was asleep. Six hours later, it's front page news in Europe. What do you do, mikeyur? WHAT DO YOU DO?
  - mikeyur 18y ago
    They obviously need to have some measures in place - of what is acceptable and what isn't. That doesn't mean you need a degree to do the job. And I'm an SEO/Marketing Consultant.