[tptacek]

It doesn't help that the rampant secondhand info we have about Google's hiring practices (for generalist devs out of school) suggests that they preference top schools; I wouldn't be surprised if that's where this guy drew that comparison from.

Not sure why I'm meant to be influenced by how an MBA stumbles through hiring tech people, though.

[madebylaw]

Uh what? I like how everyone in this thread is complaining about judging an applicant by where their degree came from while simultaneously singling out people who are 'MBA types'. Double standard much?

[tptacek]

No, it's not a double standard. Just like saying 'grellas is more qualified to give legal advice because he graduated from law school is not a validation of the law school pecking order.

[madebylaw]

Yeah it's still a double standard because you're discounting people's experience for a 'category' whether that category is 'lawyer' or 'MBA' or 'state school grad'. For example:

"Not sure why I'm meant to be influenced by how an MBA stumbles through hiring tech people, though."

What if this MBA has 20 years of experience hiring tech people, both for small and large companies, and who is also an active programmer in their spare time. Don't you think their hiring advice might be important to consider? And yet your statement jumbles him in with all those other pointy-haired 'MBA types'. That is the same problem with only looking at an applicants alma mater is it not?

Edit: And grellas' comments are awesome not just because he is a lawyer, but because of his rich experience working with startups and tech companies.

[tptacek]

Here you go:

http://blog.scottolsen.net/?page_id=2

Do you think he's had 20 years experience hiring tech people? It's possible he has. And you're right. I know lots of smart MBA's --- though most of them also have engineering degrees, unlike Olsen.

[galois]

I guess this is part of the reason to really shoot for a top school while you're in high school: many people who don't make it end up with a colossal chip on their shoulder for the rest of their lives. Ok, you weren't good enough to get into Stanford. Isn't it time you got over that?

Google has always made it clear that they intend to hire the best and brightest. Facebook has always said the same. When Zuck arrived in Palo Alto, he prowled Stanford for top engineering talent because, like Google, he knew that that was the key to the company's long-term success. He found the guys who made Photos, their first real killer app. They weren't even programmers. They were just clearly brilliant people.

37 Signals is a company full of hypocrisies. They have clearly won the lottery with the popularity of Ruby on Rails but insist on deriding others who have won similar lotteries and actually managed to turn their luck into something huge. They rail against taking investments but make an exception for taking money from Bezos because that particular money isn't used for operational purposes (cuz they marked the Bezos money with special ink and keep it in a separate safe from their other, properly bootstrapped money, which is ok to use for operations). The only advice they're qualified to give is: "how to successfully bootstrap if you create a piece of open source software that spreads like wildfire and lets you make money selling books and software to legions of fanboys".