Hacker News Reader

Comment by rejectedandsad | Hacker News Reader

> Hykes does acknowledge that there were tensions between the Docker and Google teams at the time. “There was a moment when egos prevailed. A lot of smart and experienced people at Google were blindsided by the complete outsiders at Docker,” Hykes said. “We didn’t work at Google, we didn’t go to Stanford, we didn’t have a PhD in computer science.

I found this passage interesting. Are these tensions common?

View on HN

Yes, I graduated from the same school as Salomon a few years later, and I got a lot of “you’re just a random dude from nowhere, go back to the playground” vibe during my time in California.

It’s quite an American attitude to judge your entire life and skills solely based on the college you went to. I didn’t encounter such attitude with my fellow European and Australian colleagues.

Nowadays, I don’t care that much because I’m not the little, defenseless, graduate student I was, and I do enjoy bringing a Google-Standford-Californian down to earth when they are bragging about something they have no idea about.

Depressing. I went to a basic state school and work at a normal company (not Google) and it feels like I’ll be destined to stay a failure forever.

For what it's worth, I have no degree at all, and that didn't preclude Microsoft from hiring me - nor have I ever been discriminated or disparaged for this reason in the decade since. So it might be something that varies from company to company. I wouldn't be surprised that Google, in particular, has these attitudes, as they're known to be picky about degrees when hiring.

You aren't! I'm a state-school bachelor's-only don't-even-have-a-CS-degree person; neither of my parents have a 4-year-degree. I had a FAANG job, left it for a better one, own a house in 2/5 of the most expensive cities of the world, etc., etc.

Elitist assholes definitely exist everywhere, but in my experience a lot of what I viewed as "showing off" when I was younger was really just "being normal" for a different "normal". When a 25-year-old software developer talks all the time about Stanford and Lambos, he's not trying to show off, he's just talking about what he knows, just like the guy talking about tail-gating at <insert SEC school here> and then going four-wheeling all the time.

I don't want to devalue experience and education in any way; those things have value! But time is linear and the past has happened -- you just have to move forward with what you have and go after what you want, and don't get distracted by the fact that others started out with a lot more than you. I double-pinky-promise you that if you are good at something, keep getting better at it, and aren't an asshole yourself, you can work at any company you want. :-)

I never graduated from college. I also worked at Google for 7 years and never once got that vibe from my coworkers. It probably varied by office and I was in the Chicago office. But even on my somewhat frequent visits to New York or California offices I still didn't get that vibe.

Might be because you didn't come and say something like "I was talking to my buddy in the cab, and we think your entire work for the last decade could be dramatically improved by this approach and we think this would yield a more practical solution with better performances. By the way, we've only started working in this field last month."

(In some case, it really happens to be true)

I don't have the same recollection Solomon does and I was in the room. The Google guys had an opinionated view of the world based upon experience and wanted logical justification for why their method was not superior.

Solomon's "outsider" comment is ironic since multiple of us in the room from Docker did, in fact, formerly work at Google and go to Stanford. He walked into that room assuming Google would have those prejudices and that's all he could see.

> We didn’t work at Google, we didn’t go to Stanford, we didn’t have a PhD in computer science.

Amusingly, except the "work at Google"-part, Joe and Craig don't have those other qualifications either. Brendan did get a PhD and was even a professor, but I dunno, he gave up on that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com