Why Startups Shouldn’t Hire People With Graduate Degrees

Parent Cafe
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<p>A triple major is myopic in her knowledge, insecure with her own identity, and desperate to impress</p>

<p>This here quadruple major (four engineering/comp.sci degrees in three disciplines) has a pretty broad field of knowledge (from prestressed concrete to computational theory to operations research), is quite secure (and thick skinned) with his identity, and as far as impressing people, is the most modest, self-deprecating person around. </p>

<p>The moron who wrote the article should try to understand how much fun is to work full time, attend grad school, and have a family at the same time before proclaiming that ‘grad school is for those who are not ready for real life’.</p>

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<p>There is some truth to that. I know a few people who went to Microsoft with PhD’s as well as a couple of former professors who did the same. </p>

<p>In reality, tho, having a multitude of PhD’s does not guarantee success. I started my career at the R&D labs of a prestigious (back then) industrial concern in the Midwest. The staff had some 1500 researchers with grad degrees in all kinds of disciplines. A lot of good that did, unfortunately, as most of the PhD’s simply were there to kill time before an academic position, for the salary (much higher than academia), or for churning out papers with no useful value (to their employer).</p>

<p>They finally caught on a decade later and trimmed the place to size - to this day I can remember a handful of innovations that came out of a few departments - some brand names - but overall, a major waste of money. </p>

<p>Read the “IBM Janitor Memo” for inspiration :-)</p>

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<p>Read Penelope Trunks Blue Print for a Woman’s life and then tell me how much credibility you would give to her opinions.
[Blueprint</a> for a Woman’s Life | Penelope Trunk Blog](<a href=“http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2011/08/16/blueprint-for-a-womans-life/]Blueprint”>Blueprint for a Woman's Life - Penelope Trunk Careers)</p>

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<p>“tell me how much credibility you would give to her opinions”-
A BIG FAT ZERO, imho. what a joke. how in hell did her “opinion” get the attention of someone at CHE?</p>

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<p>^^ she’s being facetious, right?</p>

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<p>which “she”? me? or Penelope?</p>

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<p>I can not see anywhere that she appears or is connected to CHE. If I hit the link the article of the original post, or even her website, there is no connection I can make to CHE.</p>

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<p>Sorry MPM, I’m with you 100%; is Penelope just saying outrageous things to get attention?</p>

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<p>MenloMom My point exactly; I don’t think one reader of cc would agree with a single point of the Blueprint for a Woman’s life…</p>

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<p>This is all ridiculous pop psychology, in my humble opinion. The author is absolutely making staggeringly long, absurd connections and jumping through hoops just to be contrarian. Yes, obviously all triple majors are just looking for excuses not to socialize.
And that’s ignoring the idiocy of her criticism of law schools, because what she fails to realize is that while you can get a job in business without an MBA, you have to have a J.D. to be a lawyer.</p>