[cma]

> Why lie about having a masters degree or working at a trading firm?

Maybe not really having the degree but it mostly being satisfied is a positive with venture capitalist after the richest man in the world had problems with his physics degree.

[emadm]

It was a weird allegation when I paid the postage and got the MA from Oxford a couple of weeks later

https://twitter.com/emostaque/status/1682091613278072832?s=4...

Told them that and more https://emad.posthaven.com/on-setting-the-record-straight

On the cofounder share sale thing it was the Ron Wayne effect with massive sour grapes and him straight up lying

https://twitter.com/emostaque/status/1680774535342358528?s=4...

[ilaksh]

Can you detail the years of study after your completion of the BA that enabled you to be awarded the MA? Or is this a "free" MA indicating "seniority"?

If it's the latter, then that's deliberately misleading to keep referencing it as if it were a normal MA. I do appreciate your efforts with the open source models though.

[emadm]

Its the standard nomenclature to use when you have graduated from Oxford with 7 years post matriculation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Arts_(Oxford,_Cambri...

I don't get the issue when this is a standard thing, was actually at Oxford same time as Mustafa Suleyman who dropped out and is doing just fine, as is Sam at OpenAI who also dropped out of Stanford.

So its not a qualification thing, nor is it a deliberate thing to mislead when that's how you're meant to identify your degree (still weird maths and computer science is an arts degree tbh there).

[ilaksh]

"7 years post matriculation" -- meaning _only_ that seven years passed since you graduated.

The issue is that describing it as an MA implies that it is equivalent to a normal Master of Arts, when in fact you did not do any further work beyond the BA. Other Oxford graduates may "standardly" benefit from this "confusion", but it's not fair to all of the millions who have worked hard for years to achieve a real graduate degree.

Whether some other famous people dropped out of an undergraduate or graduate degree program or not does not mean that it is okay to pretend that you have completed a master's degree program of work. I do believe qualifications like that are given more weight than warranted, but that doesn't mean that it's okay to be deliberately misleading. Even having lots of other people from the same university doing it doesn't make it okay.

I didn't complete any degree at all. I don't go around telling people (in so many words) that I attended UCSD. Even though I did. Because just saying that without clarification would imply that I graduated.

[haldujai]

Interesting, I didn't know that either. If I was hiring I would have assumed the candidate completed additional studies especially if the date of graduation was what appears to be 3 years after graduation (btw matriculation is start date not graduation).

@emadm the wikipedia article you link to explains why it's misleading.

[emadm]

Not really I always used MA (Oxon) as appropriate in my resumes and similar. You don't call it a BA.

I think the thing here is also intention given this is a weird thing, it would make 0 difference in anything I do for me to have tried to mislead folk that I did a masters degree.

I worked as an enterprise dev in my gap year for Metaswitch doing low level programming <= this for example is far more relevant experience.

For the role of an AI CEO typical qualification is actually dropping out tbh