[stanfordkid]

I went to Stanford (hence the screen name) ...

Stanford students are generally sheep that know one thing for certain: That they are smart enough to get into Stanford and that they now have pretty much zero excuse to not be successful.

They assume that other things (vision, relentless lifelong obsession) are means to ends. It is a fertile breeding ground for what Trungpa Rinpoche most accurately describes a "Spiritual Materialism"

Their logical conclusion is that the key to success is not relentless pursuit of practice, but rather playing tricks like the ones you describe.

Bob Noyce, Bill Gates, Marc Andressen all succeeded as a result of their passion and relentless dedication to a narrow problem space over years of effort. They saw "the truth" and thus were able to make those leaps. "Truths" are always present in every society ... and are hidden. Unfortunately it requires dedication to uncover such truths and most stanford students would rather re-use the same hammer that got them into Stanford on real life than to truly seek "truth".

That's my 2 cents.

EDIT: I can see how this was condescendingly phrased and discriminatory towards a large group of people. We should all note that the person who outed Ms. Holmes was also a Stanford student and did something very brave. I was just annoyed with seeing this pattern everywhere and even partaking in it myself -- something that impacted me very negatively.

[verulito]

We should also remember that she graduated like 15 years ago, about the same time I did. The world was VERY different back then. Her style of management reflects the generation she was created from. Unlike her peers, she was unlucky enough to have had access to enough funding to last this long. As a result, the damage done is larger than was typical even back then but also ending at a time when it would stand out. Companies like Theranos collapsed all the time in SV in the late 90s and no one thought anything of it as a result. It's not an excuse but from the looks of it, her hole was too deep by the time trends change to do a course correction.

Let's also not forget that she pursued a vision that was severely flawed, no different than many college students today even. She made a lot of mistakes that many of her peers made at the same age. She's just really unlucky at this point.

[Mz]

http://money.cnn.com/2014/10/16/technology/theranos-elizabet...

She did not graduate. She dropped out.

I also dropped out of college at a young age, but not to defraud the world in an effort to become a billionaire. So, this is not intended to suggest being a drop out is inherently bad.

#JustTheFacts

[hieronymoustosh]

white people commit massive fraud stealing millions: 'unlucky'

minorities sell 5 oz of weed: '25 years in prison'

[lettergram]

I don't really know why this has to link back to Stanford.

[stanfordkid]

Because Stanford cultivates this type of activity through a deep worship of commercial activities rather than pure pursuit of knowledge to a very smart but very impressionable group.

Colleges need to hold learning to the highest regard ... Holmes was constantly invited as a speaker to campus before she became disowned.

Look into Clinkle if you want another example. Kids are obsessed with getting rich quick and glamorizing that behavior and spoon feeding it back to them is a recipe for disaster. Snapchat is another example!

Institutions of learning and knowledge need to emphasize and glamorize that. Often times Professors themselves go to work for these companies ... the intellectual elite should feel that way about themselves: elite in their knowledge. A snobbish dismissal of material wealth might be exactly what the institution needs.

[fikgm]

Stanford sells rich parents membership in a club for their children. Their billions is a pile of bribes. Poor smarter children go without.

[Buge]

Stanford (like most top private schools) offers very generous financial aid. Very low tuition for students whose families make < $125k, and very low room and board for students whose families make < $65k. https://news.stanford.edu/2015/03/27/new-admits-finaid-03271...

Of course poor students are less likely to get accepted because of less access to private tutors and other support.

[DonHopkins]

And the rich students who get in because of their rich parents don't have to go through the same rigorous smartness and motivational filters that poor students do.

I'm willing to bet the poor students on financial aid aren't such entitled misogynistic douchebags as the rich ones [1] who go on to found companies that are "only for rich people".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Spiegel

[saturated_world]

In theory, that is great. In practice, it does little to level the playing field.

Many capable high school students are not even aware that schools like Stanford exist, and cannot even begin to conceive what acceptance into such a radically different world would even mean. I surely didn't. It is also possible that those students who are aware, and do aspire to receive this aid, have family members who actively sabotage their efforts.

[saturated_world]

My point is that it is possible that no one in the history of their high school, or anyone they have ever known, has attended such a school. The student nor their parent(s) have the mental framework to reason about it.