<story><title>The Myth of American Meritocracy</title><url>http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-myth-of-american-meritocracy/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>DanielBMarkham</author><text>For anybody that&apos;s been paying attention in the last 20 years, the collegiate funnel to success is broken in the technology/startup sector.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;m not dismissing the role of &lt;i&gt;education&lt;/i&gt;, however. Education is vastly important. A formal education with an expensive stamp on it? Not so much.&lt;p&gt;Continuing my discussion of the startup/technology sector, there was a time when a great degree would get you into places where you worked with awesome folks doing hugely important jobs. Over time, more awesome folks and hugely important jobs existed separate from that great degree. We&apos;ve now reached a point where having that great degree many times is counter-indicative of performance ability, so it becomes kind of a social club.&lt;p&gt;I hate to say it, but for run-of-the-mill high technology jobs where you interact heavily with a business customer and make some magic happen? I view deep dives in college as a warning sign that you might be validating yourself against a model that has little practical impact in the larger world.&lt;p&gt;I really hated to admit that, because I deeply love education. But dang it, I believe the tables are flipped. You are more likely to get great help in the startup/technology sector from some 20-year-old who knows everything about technology from his personal passions than you are from a 25-year-old with a Master&apos;s degree from an Ivy League institution. And in terms of organizations, it&apos;s a big red flag as far as productivity goes for those places with tight controls over collegiate applicant. Unless you&apos;re building the next LHC. Whenever I see some job that&apos;s a straight technology job that has &quot;and a masters degree in CS&quot; &lt;i&gt;without&lt;/i&gt; the following &quot;or equivalent experience&quot;? I&apos;m thinking this isn&apos;t a place I want to be associated with. They have no idea what they are doing.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Myth of American Meritocracy</title><url>http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-myth-of-american-meritocracy/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jacques_chester</author><text>One thing he mentions in passing is that the Ivy League process is built on looking for &quot;future leaders&quot;.&lt;p&gt;There&apos;s not really a test for such qualities. I mean, you can try, but it&apos;s very difficult to see how someone performs in trying circumstances until you put them there.&lt;p&gt;In &lt;i&gt;Thinking, Fast and Slow&lt;/i&gt; (which I&apos;m sure many of HNers have read), Kahneman gives an anecdote about his time working for the Israeli Defence Force. The IDF wanted a way to identify who should be put through officer training, and they turned to a team of psychologists to develop a testing program.&lt;p&gt;Kahneman and his colleagues came up with a series of scenario-based tests. Some problem would be posed to a group of soldiers (&quot;move this log over the top of this wall&quot;). The group would be observed and notes taken.&lt;p&gt;One thing that the psychologists watched for was spontaneous leadership. Who in the group took charge? Surely such a soldier was bound to command!&lt;p&gt;The problem is that, upon reviewing the performance of their selections, Kahneman and his colleagues found that their candidates did no better -- either in training or in the field -- than candidates chosen by other means. Simply seeing the &quot;obvious&quot; leadership qualities of a particular individual in a highly artificial situation is a basically useless predictor of actual outcomes.&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s satisfying noise.</text></comment>