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The value of connections is definitely real. My class ('76) was one year ahead of Gates ('77), and included Scott McNealy (Sun founder), Trip Hawkins (EA found
by cpr 17y ago
The value of connections is definitely real.
My class ('76) was one year ahead of Gates ('77), and included Scott McNealy (Sun founder), Trip Hawkins (EA founder), Tim O'Reilly, John Quartermann (sp?), and others.
(Not that I knew any of them well. Gates I knew casually from chatting before/after class, and Trip was the roommate of a friend from San Diego.)
- elblanco 17y agoExactly. What these schools are selling are exclusivity and access to the "club". Not the best education possible. This article shoots that right in the bullseye.
- codexon 17y agoWere you personally able to profit from your connections?
- cpr 17y agoWell, I had a shot at being #8 or so at Microsoft, primarily through another friend (Bob Greenberg, who was #6 or 7), but due to other circumstances, didn't take it seriously. I worked on extending Chuck Geschke's (founder of Adobe's) PhD thesis from CMU while an undergrad, and got to know him that way. He called me in to talk about starting Adobe while he was still at Xerox PARC, but, again, circumstances made it impossible. (Had just started at another Stanford (Knuth TeX project) spin-off that ultimately went nowhere. At least I got to hang around Knuth.) So, yes, in theory, those connections could have been useful. ;-)