u/Ma1eficent wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I don't have a degree and regularly help out people with doctorates in CS. I don't find a degree, even from an ivy, to be a good indicator of ability.
u/michaelnovati replied ·
How do you feel about internships though? I agree that the school itself doesn't matter if someone has 3 FAANG internships, but it's a chicken and egg problem because you can't systematically get those internships without going to a top school - in your first year, the fact you even GOT INTO STANFORD is a signal the person is exceptional.
At Meta it wasn't about feelings, it was about data - people who came from certain top schools (and also not others!), performed better and progressed better and they focused on recruiting from those schools.
If bootcamps systematically produced people of that caliber they would have recruited from them too - the data showed the opposite and they stopped!
Don't get me wrong - some of the best people I worked with were self-taught or went to not-top schools! It's just the exception and not the norm and thinking it's scalable is survivorship bias and not based on data!