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Comment by snarfy | Hacker News Reader

Not having a degree in CS certainly limits how far up the ladder you can go. For most jobs at FAANG companies the #1 requirement is a degree. You can be the highest level senior developer at a company but you'll never make director or vp without a degree.

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This is completely false. If you have the strategic insight, networking, management, and communication skills to become a director or VP at a FAANG, I promise you no one in the C-Suite is saying, "Gee I don't know, they didn't finish their bachelor's degree." People who grow into those roles do so by establishing a track record over 10+ years. At that point no one cares what they were doing when they were 21.

The people who went to MIT didn't need to spend 10+ years "establishing a track record" before getting a desirable job, people took them seriously right out of college.

It takes 10+ years worth of work amd good habits to get into MIT.

I agree that people from Target Schools have an easier time getting their foot in the door, but I also believe the benefit stops shortly thereafter.

The benefits carry forward though. If you have a good first job, that makes it a lot easier to get a good second job, third job, VC funding, etc.

Agree, this is exactly the reason why M. Zuckerberg is not a VP.

Am I supposed to take this as sarcastic? It's hard to tell but is kind of funny either way.

Does Facebook hire a lot of people without degree?

Zuckerberg never had to interview at Facebook.

It isn’t a criteria for the promotion ladder at Google. True, it may be a hard requirement for VP, I can neither confirm nor deny, and I don’t care either. But this is moving the goal posts; I don’t know by what definition my job would not be considered high paying. Certainly pays good enough for me.

Those companies generally have a technical ladder that runs parallel to the management ladder.

High-level engineers can have more influence within the company and often earn more than directors and VPs, and most developers who want to move up the ladder don't aspire to become a director or VP -- they'd rather be a Distinguished Engineer, Fellow, etc.

I remember when the CEOs of Apple, Oracle, and Microsoft did not have degrees.

Gates (and Zuckerberg) went to Harvard, and would probably have had a much harder time getting venture capitalists to take them seriously if they did not have Harvard on their resume. They aren't proof that college doesn't matter, they are proof that an elite college matters a lot, but graduating matters a lot less simply than attending and getting access to the network.

I agree with you on Zuckerberg since he was chosen as the winner among a lot of competitors by the VCs. I am not sure what criteria the VCs used.

Microsoft was generating cash by writing interpretors before they brought a VC on board. They only brought in a VC for advice and not money - so they still count. Although Gates' mother also had a lot of contacts in the Seattle upper crust. I doubt Gates needed Harvard outside of finding Ballmer.

Apple got VC funding though contacts made on the job not at school. Jobs went to a Liberal Arts college for less than a year. The Homebrew Club also had a big impact on early Apple. Several members of the Homebrew Club founded companies and they all kept track of each other.

Similarly with Oracle and Larry Ellison. Ellison spent some time at two Chicago universities but his contacts and training were largely on the job.

After thinking about this over night I do believe that the difference between Zuckerberg and Gates is telling.

It used to be that having Harvard on your resume did not mean much in tech since it was not considered a tech school. The feel of the valley changed when John Sculley took over Apple since he was not at all a tech guy. This is just based on my gut, but I saw more Harvard alums after Sculley then before Sculley.

So I looked up the top schools for tech CEOs. This is the ranking of schools with the most CEOs with first round of funding. There were a few surprises for me. 1. Stanford 2. UC Berkeley 3. U of Pennsylvania 4. Harvard 5. MIT 6. Cornell 7. U of Michigan 8. U of Texas 9. Carnagie Mellon 10. IIT

Stanford and Berkeley were not a surprise since I have worked at a bunch of companies founded by Stanford and Berkeley alumni. IIT and MIT were also not surprises.

One thing that skews the results is that a bunch of schools provide masters programs to already successful professionals - so it is not clear that they actually contributed to the success of the alumni.

This is a common perception, but it does not match what I have experienced.

I know many folks who have went on to leadership roles in SV without degrees. It does matter who you know, but that matters even with a degree!

What percentage of college degree holders make it to that level?

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