[josephhardin]

The M.S. does, but as stories like this become more common, non-namebrand MS programs will start to lose some luster. Being able to point to a publication, or a project you run, or something genuinely useful to at least someone, goes a long way to distinguish you from the people who went to school, but never programmed in their free time, and do it purely as a job. Passion as a buzzword is very overrated in this community, but at least a little bit of it is required to make you stand out. I'd imagine this goes doubly so for the startup world.