I agree that toxic elitism isn’t new, but I do also agree with the author that it has intensified.
Only a few colleges matter. A degree from the others is “actually a dunce cap” according to Peter Thiel.
Absolutely everything happens in only a few cities, which of course have developed completely ludicrous property prices. Nothing happens anywhere else, so if you want a good career you have to at least spend time in one of these.
Markets are winner take all with one or maybe a few companies taking each vertical.
I have asked older people about this, especially the urban elitism of only a few cities matter. Most of them have confirmed what I have observed (I am 45) namely that these trends massively accelerated roughly after the year 2000.
It could be due to the Internet, historically low interest rates redistributing wealth to those that can easily net investment or cheap corporate debt, or some other factor, but I do think it’s real. I also suspect it’s a hidden driver of our political hyper polarization.
The urban elitism seems to have been dented a little by telework and COVID, and we seem to be entering an unbundling phase with social media. Maybe the trend is reversing.
Gates, Zuckerberg, and Jobs all recognized that the value proposition was not there and moved on. They did not stick it out to receive the graduate/dunce cap just to sooth their sunk cost pangs. Indeed, had they continued with it just because they started, that would be dunce-worthy.
Thiel suggests that the "colleges that matter" offer more, e.g. research labs, that bring more to the table. That may justify greater investment. Certainly researchers at Harvard have done a lot of ground breaking things. The role it played in those discoveries is why it is considered a college that matters. Can Reed College say the same?
Thiel's perspective may very well be distorted, but I am not sure these examples show that. More telling, if we want to play with anecdotes, would be to look at a graduate of Reed College, not someone who ran away as fast as possible because he felt the college was not offering him much.
OK on Steve Jobs, but Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg were at Harvard. And they decided the value still wasn't there - even with Harvard's "ground breaking things" and "college that matters".
> Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg were at Harvard. And they decided the value still wasn't there.
No, they realized that they had a limited time-window opportunity on their hands that has a potential for a lot more value than the degree, as long as they executed on that opportunity well and had a bit of luck.
Neither Gates nor Zuck just dropped out with nothing going on for them, and only then started their respective companies. IIRC Zuck quit because he was busy running Facebook during its explosive growth phase, and he had to make a choice between allocating his time to running FB and school.
Most people who decide to drop out don't have an explosively-growing business on their hands that they have a limited time-window to execute on. And while this is a pure guess, but I don't think Zuck would drop out just because, without something like FB fighting for his time and attention.
The idea isn't that Harvard magically gives you value just by showing up, but that there is opportunity to extract value there. An early investment in Harvard may lead you to joining the ranks as a researcher, for example. Gates and Zuckerberg realized that wasn't their future, so they aborted and got on the right track for themselves. But Thiel suggests that there is a possible future for those who wish to strive to join a Harvard "Old Boys Club".
In contrast, he suggests that a Reed College has no such opportunity. Let's say Jobs did graduate from its hallowed halls. Then what? Maybe he'd become a professor there? What can one really get out of Reed College? More likely he would have just ended up back in industry, at which point it was a waste of resources to invest in academia. Thiel would see such waste as being a boneheaded move. Sure, if you are in college for personal enjoyment, or what have you, rather than some kind of financial investment then such waste is less of a concern, but then you are also not Thiel's intended audience.
Only a few colleges matter. A degree from the others is “actually a dunce cap” according to Peter Thiel.
Absolutely everything happens in only a few cities, which of course have developed completely ludicrous property prices. Nothing happens anywhere else, so if you want a good career you have to at least spend time in one of these.
Markets are winner take all with one or maybe a few companies taking each vertical.
I have asked older people about this, especially the urban elitism of only a few cities matter. Most of them have confirmed what I have observed (I am 45) namely that these trends massively accelerated roughly after the year 2000.
It could be due to the Internet, historically low interest rates redistributing wealth to those that can easily net investment or cheap corporate debt, or some other factor, but I do think it’s real. I also suspect it’s a hidden driver of our political hyper polarization.
The urban elitism seems to have been dented a little by telework and COVID, and we seem to be entering an unbundling phase with social media. Maybe the trend is reversing.