[swozey]

That's the Google way. I was referred by 2 people on the team I'd be on but nobody on that team had anything to do with my committee interview.

So, instead of the people who know my work (from FOSS projects) it was a random gaggle of Stanford, etc people. I don't have a degree at all so to say I was intimidated and miserable and feeling very judged is an understatement.

Even my recruiter there had gone to Stanford and mentioned that her sister went to some other school and looks down at her lowly Stanford. wild place.

[mistrial9]

in older days my artsy friends would call those Stanford etc people "yuppies" or "frat guys/gals" among other things. The culture gap is real since those ordinary graduates did in fact compete and acheive in a certain way to get where they are.. so it is easy and human nature to judge others on the criteria they were judged on.. meanwhile, real skills, talent and sweat are common among the fringy outsiders, along with bad skin, odd clothing choices, low personal skills or other warts... hang in there!

[swozey]

That was actually my first time in SV/SFBay area (just stuck around San Mateo and San Jose) and I hated San Mateo. I'm used to gritty fun towns like Austin and Denver and San Mateo was culture shock. Netflix has the same problem being in Los Gatos, it might be worse there.

I remember one of my Uber drivers was getting their PHD in Machine Learning/AI.

They must have a huge funnel from Stanford. I'm not sure what other good schools are over there.