[bakuninsbart]

I think a major difference, at least to my country, Germany, is that in the US the university you graduate from has an outsized influence on your career potential, especially when it comes to senior positions at large companies. On the contrary, here in Germany these positions are usually filled through either familial connections or company-internal mentorships. Board members and C-suite often have been with the company for at least 20 years.

One other difference is that all the major companies in Germany are very old, and around half of them are either privately owned, or state companies. BionTech, the last company to really rise to the major players was actually founded and is being led by immigrants.

[agloe_dreams]

A key element in the US is that VC is a poison. With growth at all costs as a priority, many US companies are focused on getting whomever is willing to push sales over all else, this generally requires a name with a history of success so most internal hires are out. Also, most of these companies won't exist in 20 years to have someone whom has been there for 20 years.

[mustafa_pasi]

But the US is still performing better on all metrics:

1. more innovation 2. high economic growth 3. better salaries

Whatever you are doing works.

[polygamous_bat]

> 1. more innovation

How do we quantify it? And how do we know that it is not the result of metric-hacking, as the GP commented, and is actually true "innovation"?

> 2. high economic growth

Same as above.

> 3. better salaries

Only for a small slice of the population. Income inequality is growing across the country, and it is not an obviously good thing if a small fraction of the country is getting boundlessly richer while the rest of the country/world suffers.

[kla-s]

That is a very special set of metrics and one could argue the opposite using e.g. social and environmental externalities (social safety net/ energy consumption pP...).

The other thing is, is there more real innovation going on or is this just some local hyper optimization of making the numbers go up?

I don`t claim to be the judge/arbiter on this matter, guess i`m glad we can compare both on this world

[ilikehurdles]

I think you’re half right. In the US, the university you graduate from has not that much influence in most career paths. For jobs expecting post-graduate education, then it starts to matter a whole lot. Matching into specific medical schools and law schools can have an immense impact on the respective careers. Tech jobs don’t fall into those buckets.

You are right about this being different:

> On the contrary, here in Germany these positions are usually filled through either familial connections or company-internal mentorships.

Some government jobs are notoriously products of nepotism and inbreeding, but private industry is, in my experience, invested in recruiting the best candidates available to them.

It’s hard to explain in a comment, and it’s easy for locals to take it for granted, but private industry in the US incentivizes speculation (risk-taking). It feeds into how we start companies, how and when we invest, where we live, our liquid financial markets, and I think we idealize hiring not from academic titles or genes but from merit. This idea that we settle on the same things for the 30 years is somewhat antithetical to that.

[FirmwareBurner]

>but private industry is, in my experience, invested in recruiting the best candidates available to them.

Not in Germany. All management positions I saw at big auto makers there were filled based on connections instead of competence. Who you rub shoulders there is very important for your career progression.

I know it because I've seen a long delayed project of a hybrid sports car be even more delayed thanks to the project manager being replaced 3 times because he was an incompetent moron being given a golden parachute to be replaced by an equally incompetent moron, 3 times in a row.

[roland35]

I haven't seen this trend in US tech at least. Most other engineers I've worked with have gone to good state schools but very few have gone to top ivy or similar (eg MIT/Stanford).

I bet you're correct with other industries such as investment banking or finance though.

[aeyes]

The poster isn't talking about engineers but about C-level and board members. In Germany you don't even need to go to university to work in tech, you can enter through the apprenticeship career route.