<p>Steve Jobs only son is graduating this year with degree in History from Stanford and Bill Gates eldest daughter is in her first year at Stanford…</p>
<p>Even their father did not study anything close to Engineering/CS. Bill Gates studied pre-law, I believe his father was a lawyer and Steve Jobs studied physics, literature, and poetry.</p>
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<p>Indeed, his father was extremely successful in his own right – perhaps enabling young Bill to drop out of college?</p>
<p>His dad founded the national law firm, K.&L. Gates.</p>
<p>I think good thing he didn’t relying on his trust fund, somewhere in the $5 million range, I read.</p>
<p>@DrGoogle. What’s interesting is that our K2 tells us that not only is Bill Gate’s daughter in K2’s Stanford’s freshman class but Steve Ballmer’s (the other 22 billion dollar man) second son is also a member.</p>
<p>So glad the east coast is no longer recognized as the ONLY place to get the top education. Nor is it the epicenter of everything either. Thee rest of the country does just fine without sending their kids east for college.</p>
<p>@gravitas2, Steve Ballmer must like the West Coast, considering the fact that he went to Harvard. I read on CC that his first son went to USC and he just bought the basketball team in LA. </p>
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<p>Dude, Jay-Z’s in his forties. Middle-aged, to today’s kids!</p>
<p>I agree this is non-news. It’s like if they ran an article saying “Young people now believe Mozart to be greatest composer ever, rather than Beethoven.” Two different schools, both excellent, both with much to offer. Believe me, a Harvard grad with a great start-up tech idea is not going to be sniffed at in Silicon Valley because she didn’t go to Stanford. And I’m sure a Stanford hedge-funder-wanna-be does not find that doors in Wall Street are closed to him.</p>
<p>@DrGoogle </p>
<p>Ballmer also went to Stanford for MBA, but didn’t finish the degree.</p>
<p>Gates did not study pre-law at Harvard, he had no specific study plan.
He took the famous Math 55 (considered one of the hardest math courses in college).
He took combinatorics (math) and developed an algorithm which for 30 years was the most efficient in that specific area.
Before going to Harvard, he was heavily involved in programming.
So not your typical pre-law courses.</p>
<p>Also, apparently he did not drop, he is technically “on leave”.
He could still go back, but I think he would be surprised at how much tuition has gone up since he left.</p>
<p>Yeah, he might have to take out some loans! 
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<p>@fluffy2017, that sounds like prelaw to me? :D</p>
<p>I thought the language of “coding” was a prerequisite to get into law, med, and business school now 
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<p>That bears repeating. Attending one of those effete eastern institutions did not stop our older one from getting well-paid summer internships at top CS firms on the west coast, nor did it stop her from securing permanent employment with the best of those firms. </p>
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<p>Don’t the kids get to choose? 
Gates and Jobs lived on the west coast so Stanford was the natural choice anyway. The daughter of Steve Case (AOL founder) also went to Stanford, but that can be explained by her being a recruited athlete. </p>
<p>To me, all you need to know is that Harvard has lots of peers on the east coast, and Stanford has only a couple on the west coast. So it’s hardly surprising that Stanford looms larger–on the west coast.</p>
<p>Financial industries seem to go in cycles, but by eliminating prop trading at i-banks, Dodd-Frank probably makes investment banking a less attractive financial proposition in the long run. Similarly, PE is much more competitive and most PE firms don’t really add a lot of value other than focusing on cash flow and timing and providing big incentives to management so it is going to be hard to make the stunning fortunes there. From the outside, people might think that many people make fortunes. I suspect Wall Street incomes have a lower variance than Silicon Valley, but now that the financial businesses offer a lower probability of a huge jackpot, Silicon Valley might have a higher mean income. That may be why the brightest (if not the best) are shifting from East to West Coasts.</p>