April 30, 2024 • 35 mins
Could your diploma be silently sabotaging your job prospects? This week we're tearing down the ivory towers of higher education, proposing a radical shift in hiring practices that could ignite a firestorm of debate. Buckle up as we examine the prospect of educational attainment as a protected category, challenging employers to value skills and achievements over the name of your university. Our conversation spans the potential upheaval of prestigious institutions' business models to the real implications of meritocracy versus privilege in the job market. We're not shying away from the tough questions: Is an Ivy League education just a glorified membership to an exclusive club, or does it genuinely set you up for success?
Join us, alongside guests from varied academic paths, as we share insights from our stints at places like St. John's College and the University of Kansas. We weigh in on the recent San Francisco high school decision to drop entrance exams, opening up a broader dialogue on educational equality and fairness in society. The crux of our debate: should the value of one’s work experience and tangible accomplishments trump the brand of their alma mater? We're not just theorizing; we scrutinize how the #MeToo movement has already influenced hiring in the finance industry, hinting at the seismic changes that could ripple through the job market if educational discrimination were curtailed. Tune in for a thought-provoking journey through the intersection of education, hiring, and societal change.
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Email: solutionsfromthemultiverse@gmail.com
Adam: @ajbraus - braus@hey.com
Scot: @scotmaupin
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Thanks to Jonah Burns for the SFM music.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
okay, I've got a solution.
That's what we're here for,okay what do you got?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
that's a higher education solution.
Oh no, I'm out, I'm out I'msorry you're done.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
No, no higher education is perfect.
Actually, we don't needanything's fine.
I checked in yesterday and theysaid they're good.
No more a year yeah right,jesus christ.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
okay, so here the solution.
So we've talked about in thepast in this podcast about
protected categories right, likeyour race, your gender, sexual
orientation, you can't hirepeople or not hire people based
on protected categories Based oncertain.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
yeah sure.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
And so you can't be prejudiced, you can't say well,
there are some exceptions.
Like the Supreme Court recentlysaid, you can refuse to make a
cake for a gay wedding yeah, youdon't have to hire someone who
says fire in a crowded theater.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Right, that's what.
That is what the supreme courtshowed.
Yeah, I think we're getting our.
Well, that's okay.
Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
You're right, I think that's right I mean with this
supreme court who knows right.
Okay, so I'm going to say asolution to higher education
would be.
It would.
So I think it would solve all,and I'm an expert in higher
(01:22):
education.
We can talk about my book.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
We have a whole book on this topic, but here's
another solution, which is weshould make educational
attainment a protected category.
Educational attainment Nowyou're not trying to say
(01:44):
edutainment, right, You're nottrying to like the thing where
they're like, we're like, we'regonna entertain you while we
you're trying to say attaining.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
This is not blues clues yeah, okay, okay, right.
So I'm saying like I'm notsaying you can't be prejudiced
against people you know,prejudice in the pot in the
sense of discerning right,deciding on people's qualities
for like a job based on whatthey know, like actual knowledge
.
I'm saying that you cannot askthem where they went to school
(02:09):
and what level of degree theyhave.
So I think we should make itillegal for an employer to ask
that, okay, and that would makeit so that instead they would
have to ask can you actually dothe tasks that are for this job?
(02:31):
And people would have todemonstrate that they can.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
So the where and what of your schooling would be like
behind closed doors, like apassword or your social security
?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
your social.
It'd be like what your religionwas.
No one could ask what yourreligion is in a job interview
okay, I got you, I got you noone could ask what your nation
of origin is.
They can't say like oh, that'syour name.
Is that mean, are you fromnorway?
Like you can't.
You can't do that in a jobinterview.
That's not a lot.
That's not legal okay it shouldalso be.
Oh, I see that you went to mit.
(03:06):
That should also not be legalbecause it's unfair and it
doesn't work and it's allbullshit.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
It'd be much better for the employers and for the
workers and for education forpeople to just not ask that now
not to stick up for these people, but you know who's going to
have a problem with this is allthe big institutions that charge
lots of money for the people tobe able to put their names on
the resumes which is what you'resaying shouldn't happen anymore
(03:35):
.
But wait, if I'm in the samebucket as everyone else, then
why did I pay so much for myeducation of college Exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Why did you pay for that?
Because it was an unfair that'swhat they're gonna apartheid
system, although they will alsosay obviously it's we're.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
We're providing something that's worth more
right.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
They'd say well they're, they're better, they're
smarter people they're betterpeople right, right, and so you
should pay attention to if theywent to harvard, or, or.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
MIT or whatever, then that should be reflected in
their interview and theirpersonality and how they come
off.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yeah, and things they've accomplished in the real
world, like they can be like.
Here's a project I did.
Here's a referral from someonewho I worked with who says I'm
really good.
Here's, you know, I built aproduct and grew it to millions
and millions of people.
I was super successful as amarketer.
Hire me as a marketer, orwhatever it is With your 35, way
(04:32):
more relevant to who you are iswhat you've been doing the last
10 years, not what you did forthe four years in college and
where that was yeah, 20 yearsbefore, right, and so if we did
this, I honestly think that ifwe, we did this, so there's a
lot of people out there I'm notlike a strict egalitarian, okay.
I'm not like, oh, I want totear people down, to make people
more equal.
I don't.
(04:52):
I don't really believe in that.
I actually think it's fine forthere to be fair fair in a fair
way, for people to excel waybeyond other people.
As long as it's fair and aslong as there's and we long as
we provide for the mostvulnerable people, I don't care
how the cookie crumbles andwhere people end up.
The problem is when it's notfair and when we don't provide
(05:14):
for the least vulnerable.
We're not really talking aboutproviding for the least
vulnerable in this episode.
We're talking about the fairmeritocracy, the fair
competition in society, andright now it it's just not fair
and it doesn't lead to goodoutcomes for there to be this
huge 900-pound gorilla on yourresume.
Oh, I went to Stanford or I wentto Harvard, and all of a sudden
(05:36):
, doors are all just booted openfor you for no reason.
These people are not moreimpressive than someone who can
say I did impressive things.
Look at the impressive things Idid.
That should actually count farmore than I'm.
I went to stanford oh, what'sthe point?
You know what's the?
What does that show?
Speaker 1 (05:57):
yeah, yeah.
And the system where doors areopened based on, like, who has
money to go to theseinstitutions or the networking
to get in, or whatever, thatdoesn't serve us better either
we're all served better by asystem that looks at the person
and not like the piece of paperthat they hold right, you know
(06:17):
and maybe, like I don't know, 50years ago you'd be like well,
how are you gonna, you know,know all that you know?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
but but now it's so, it's so simple, I mean you just
look at their LinkedIn, yeah.
Our social media profiles showeverything we do and have done,
and it's not hard to just scrollthrough the greatest hits of
somebody's LinkedIn and you cansee what they did.
Not to mention, we could justhave AIs that would look at your
(06:44):
whole thing and just tellpeople yeah, this is like how.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, no, I already have two eyes and I already use
those to look at no.
Ais?
No, I have two.
You're supposed to use A, justa single eyes.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
That's funny Two eyes .
Two eyes are better than one,two eyes are better than A,
although I am jealous, you know,by eye patches.
You know, I heard a thing aboutpirates wearing eye patches.
Do you know why they alwayswore eye patches?
Because they lost their eyes insword fights.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
No, that's not why To use the periscope thing.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
No, why no?
This is so crazy, but I readthis, I believe it's true.
Pirates would always wear eyepatches so that they could go
below decks and switch the eyepatch, and their eye was already
accustomed to the dark.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
What?
That's pretty cool.
Yeah, actually that's prettysmart, Isn't that cool?
Speaker 2 (07:37):
What?
So they could be out in thedaylight and one eye is covered.
Yeah, and it's bright.
So one eye is getting all thelight and then they duck under
the decks.
It's totally dark.
They don't want to be blind for20 seconds.
Early version of night visiongoggles.
You just switch it and now youhave a dark eye that you can
walk around down underneath.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
now that's crazy, isn't that cool?
Yeah, because it does make nosense that so many pirates were
losing one eye all the time.
I mean, like what?
Is that cool?
Yeah, because it does make nosense that so many pirates were
losing one eye all the time,right, I mean, like in a sword
fight.
That's a how do you get the eyeright?
Either you're gonna die oryou're not gonna die.
The idea of losing just an eyeand nothing else feels very
difficult they're gentlemenfighting.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
They only put the sword in one inch, no matter
where they hit you, they justput it in one inch.
It hits the eye.
One inch, one inch out, youknow, okay.
So reddit is saying that thisis a fate.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
This is not true it's not true, but it's just saying
no, this is a fable thatsurfaced a few years ago.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
It's not corroborated by any sources.
Oh, but I wanted to believe it.
Very few pirates were an eyepatch and if they did, it's
because they covered a missingeye.
Damn it I liked your storythough I know this says there's
no reason.
Practically this makes no sensebecause pirates didn't move
below decks during attacksAttacks so it doesn't make any
(08:56):
sense.
This is like a great urbanlegend.
Though it's so sticky and fun,pirates actually use it.
Hey, I bought it immediately.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
I was like great, I love it.
I did too.
I can't wait to tell everyone Iknow in all of my subsequent
pirate conversations yeah,exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Tell every single person alive.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
That's the bad thing.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
That's why I have to check all these things, because
I will spread stuff that was sosticky it pushed even what the
solution for today was out of mymind.
I have no idea now, I'm justfree floating, now I'm just
surfing.
We were solution highereducation.
Oh yeah, make make higher.
Make educational attainment aprotected category.
(09:33):
Yes, now people on the rightand like libertarians will hate
on this idea because they'll sayyou're attacking the
meritocracy, right, you'reattack, you're just, you know,
because what they?
What the big, the big debatehere between, like ideologically
, the debate between kind ofright wing and sort of left,
generally right wing and leftwing people although it doesn't
always break down that way, isyou know?
(09:54):
This is the way it's framed.
Left wing people want equalityof outcomes and right wing
people want equality ofopportunity within diversity of
outcomes, maybe even inequalityof outcomes.
Okay, there's major problemswith this.
One is the.
The right wing people are nottrying to get equal opportunity.
That's insane, because theydon't bring up, they're not
(10:15):
bringing up the base, right?
They don't say everyone gets,you know, free access to
education, free, and then theirmerit would actually decide
where they achieve.
They're putting huge bear.
You know what do they say?
Some people start the race onthe fin, you know, two inches
from the finish line and otherpeople start a mile behind.
So it's not equal opportunitybut the but the left wing.
I think there is a goodcriticism of the left wing that
(10:37):
equal outcomes is not actually agood goal.
A better goal is equalopportunity, and sometimes the
the left wing and the veryegalitarian members of the left
wing start to think of equalityof outcome as a success if they
can't get equality ofopportunity.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
So help me out.
Why would equality of outcomesnot be a desirable thing?
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Well, because in order to get equality of
outcomes, you have to bring downthe high performers and bring
up the bottom performers.
You have to kind of limitpeople.
Yeah, exactly, okay, okay.
So like, for example, in sanfrancisco, there was a big
debate a couple years ago whereI think they actually succeeded
at removing the entranceexamination for one of the
(11:21):
gifted high schools in sanfrancisco, like a famous gifted
high school, okay, and it wasoverrun with, like, asian people
.
Of course you know, I thinkthat's, you know, a compliment
to asian people.
Of course you know, I thinkthat's you know, a compliment to
asian people.
They're very, you know folk,they're culturally overrun.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
It's a very complimentary language.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Well, I'm not using complimentary language, but it's
, it's.
It was great.
You know they they people whoreally valued education, turns
out most of them were asian.
They got their kids into thislike high-powered, you know,
gifted high school and it wasbecause there was an entrance
examination so only people whohad prepared could get into it.
And these San Franciscoleftists tried to end that and
get rid of the entrance exam.
(11:57):
And then there was this hugepushback from kind of right-wing
San Franciscans which are likeleft-wing in the country, but
they're kind of right-wing here,they're like techies and they
were like no, no, no, no, keepthe entrance exam, because it's
like merit, it's a meritocracy,right?
so if you say, oh, we're gonnamake, we're gonna make, we're
gonna make educationalattainment a protected category
(12:19):
to the right wing type people,that's gonna sound like I'm just
, I'm doing this.
I'm trying to do the samestupid left wing move of like
trying to limit, you know, limit, uh, the the heights people can
reach in order to like createequality of outcomes.
But actually that's not whatI'm trying to do at all.
I'm trying to create, I'mtrying to make it so that the
meritocracy actually rewardspeople of merit and not just
(12:42):
people who have gamed the system, who were born on third base,
who then go to these elitecolleges and then get all like
all opportunities.
The rest of their life are justlike made easier for no reason.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Do you think it will have a huge shift on like?
Will it affect much like?
Will it change the stratus?
I feel like some of it gets onthe paper but like there's also
a lot of stuff that you get justfrom going to those
institutions, from like makingconnections and like you know
good old old boys clubs andthose sorts of things.
(13:14):
That may still.
I mean, there's no way to fixeverything.
But you know, that may still bea thing where you're like, oh
no, I'm still, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah, I see what you're saying sure I mean, if
you, if you and your friends arelike you know, like I heard
about this after me too that inthe finance industry, like if
you got a finance bro in newyork like kind of drunk and you
were just talking to him at abar, you'd be like so what do
you think this me too stuff isgonna have gonna lead to in your
like industry, they just tellyou like, yeah, we're not gonna
(13:46):
hire women, as much you know,they can't legally write that
down or like say that, likereally, you know, in any way,
leave a paper trail of that.
But they were just like, yeah,finance is just not going to
hire women because then we mighthit on them and lose our
freaking careers, I guess.
So that's a really bad outcome,sure, so you?
So you can be racist, and thisis what I'm saying you can break
(14:08):
those laws, but you just can'tdo it legally.
So the same thing would be forthis.
You could say, hey, hire peoplefrom ivy league schools.
But like, but then?
But no one would ever put ontheir resume the ivy league
school and you couldn't ask themdirectly where they went to
school you know?
Speaker 1 (14:23):
yeah, I guess I'm wondering if, like, if that, if
the prestige came from themactually being, on the whole, a
better like, do you think like,going to an ivy league does that
put you in a better spot tocompete in the in the work?
Speaker 2 (14:39):
world, absolutely not , absolutely not those people.
I find ivy league peopleextremely boring and and not
smart and obedient.
So there's no, you don't thinkthere's anything like worth,
like there's not a.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
what I'm wondering is like oh, is there a thing to be
?
Maybe going to thoseinstitutions you do get a better
, stronger education, you comeout as a better person?
Speaker 2 (14:59):
No, I don't think so, so maybe it's warranted that
way.
Actually, I think it's just alot of name recognition.
Oh, that's a good department.
There's a concentration oftalent density.
That happens to be in CarnegieMellon's mechanical engineering
(15:22):
department, and so you will getprobably a better education and
it's hard to get into that.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
If you're crushing all the courses at MIT, you're
probably a very smart Maybe.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
But even MIT.
For example, I know this for MITspecifically because an MIT
professor was brought in tocritique my program that I built
and designed and everyone wasso happy like, oh my God, we got
this prestigious MIT professorto review our curriculum.
He came in and I had anhour-long conversation with him
(15:57):
talking about the curriculum andmost of that was me explaining
to him educational sciences thathe did not understand or know.
He didn't know how to do anassessment strategy, which is
what any teacher knows.
Any even high school teacherknows an an assessment strategy,
which is like what any teacherknows.
Any like even high schoolteacher knows what an assessment
strategy is.
And this guy didn't knowbecause he knew a lot about,
like physics or some shit, likesome you know mit thing, but he
(16:20):
actually he wasn't a very goodteacher like he didn't know
basic educational science.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
It's kind of like if you went to the doctor really
deep in his own field but not inlike how to right.
It's like if you went to thedoctor really deep in his own
field, but not in.
Yeah, like how to right?
Speaker 2 (16:30):
it's like if you went to the doctor and the doctor
was, like I'm your podiatrist,so they're supposed to know
everything about like your feet,and so they do know a lot about
feet, but they don't reallyknow how to like do medicine of
the feet.
Like they just know all thebones and all the muscles and
all the, but they don't reallyknow the diseases and like the
cures.
You know that's like it's likethat's.
There's a big gap there, so Idon't actually think these ivy
(16:53):
leagues are providing muchbenefit, except for a selection
bias.
So they're generally.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
You know it's hard to get in hard to get a bunch of
strong students get in who arealready super prepared and
because of the name recognition,they can certainly bolster a
good success rate of thegraduates and then they have a
success rate because of the namerecognition I don't think.
I don't think there'snecessarily.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Uh, much of a.
The benefit is mostly theselection bias and the name
recognition.
I think the actual schools arejust like holding pens.
They're just like places wherethere's a lot of talent density
because of selection bias andthen those that.
That that feeds on itself andthe students get smarter and you
know they do things becausethey're.
They would have done thingsanyways and there's.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
You know, yeah, I don't, I I think I don't know a
lot about I just I think of itlike like a professional
sporting league where I'm likethere's got to be professors who
are all-star, like amazingprofessors, and I'm imagining
that the, the fancy schools, getto buy those professors and
have them come to their the waythat you buy like basketball
(17:57):
players, there's no the researchactually goes the other way so
if you actually look at theresearch, the the strongest
outcomes of students like themost learning.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
the most learning that students actually do is
under the most capable educators, not the biggest researchers,
and all of these schools try toidentify the biggest researchers
and make them into professors.
And so the evidence wouldsuggest the exact opposite.
And actually I think the bestproof of this is if you look at
(18:28):
Ivy League schools' professors.
The professors are not from IvyLeague schools.
They're usually mostly gettingtheir PhDs at state schools.
They work their way up to… andthen they're the best because
they went not to the Ivy League.
And then they get into the IvyLeagues as the professors
because they actually wentthrough a meritocratic process
(18:51):
outside of the Ivy Leagues,right.
And then they go into the IvyLeagues and now all the
graduates don't have the sameoutcomes as so it's kind of like
.
That right there shows thatit's like an emperor's with no
clothes on.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Yeah, and I was going to say I've heard that
conversation a lot.
Where they're talking about nowthere's too much emphasis on
research and publishing forprofessors and not as much for
teaching quality and engagementwith students and student
satisfaction, like they've putthe weight on the wrong foot
there and it has results thatthey want to get, but it also
(19:25):
turns down some other stuff thatthey may not have.
Turns down some other stuffthat they may not have.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
The other thing this would fix is a big gender and
just in general problem with jobdescriptions.
So job descriptions say theyalways say two things and both
of them are bad and should beillegal to say Only boys, no
girls.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
What you can't put that on a job you can't put that
either.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Oh my gosh.
So what they do is they say youmust have a bachelor's degree
or you must have a master'sdegree.
And then the other thing theysay is you must have five years
experience or two yearsexperience or whatever.
Both of those things should notbe allowed to be put on job
recs, Largely because women willunderestimate their abilities
(20:08):
and men will overestimate theirabilities, will underestimate
their abilities and men willoverestimate their abilities.
So if it says five yearsexperience, a man with two years
experience might happily apply,but a woman with four years
experience won't, because onaverage she'll think well, I
don't have five years experience.
But instead, if it said, must beable to run a sophisticated
campaign of digital marketing ordo this, do an actual?
(20:30):
Wrote out the competency thatyou actually are supposed to be
able to have.
Then men or women can be likehuh, yeah, I can do four of
those seven.
And it says if you can do fourof the seven of these
competencies you'd be a greatcandidate.
More seven out of seven, bettercandidate, right, but like four
at a minimum.
(20:50):
And if they did that, thatinstead of what kind of degree
you have, what, what um, whatkind of degree you have and like
how many years experience youhave, if you got rid of that
then there would be much bettermatching between competencies
and job, actual job roles sothat's kind of separate from the
(21:10):
school name thing, right,that's an additional thing.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
But I think this all kind of conglomerates into an HR
solution.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
You need HR practices to and HR only responds to
legality because HR is one ofthe most regressive parts of any
company.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
They're just trying to make the company sue's like
the one thing they're trying todo so that's why it's not a lot
of innovation and it's just likeright, stay between the lines.
All right, maybe we should dodouble.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
maybe we should say it's a protected category your,
your educational attainment, andit's a protected category how
many years you've worked in anyindustry or place, although
that'd be silly, because youhave to tell people where you
worked.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Yeah, making a requirement, I think, like you
were saying, competency-basedinstead of time-based.
Because you could have spentfive years being the worst
employee at a terrible place andbe like well, bing, bing, bing,
I'm good I can go there, and,as opposed to someone who spent
like a year and a half being thestar at a place and goes you
(22:16):
know what, I've outgrown thisplace I need something more.
You'd want a system thatidentifies the star that outgrew
their place and not the personwho languished until they were
let go and so and you know yoursis it just a bad metric
sometimes?
Yeah, sometimes it's good, buthaving it be the be all end, all
I think you're right is isputting it on the wrong spot I
(22:39):
think that.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
So I've never heard of people saying like.
So I've heard things in the endin the industry around the tech
industry, where people willunfairly say like, for example,
I won't say what companies, butmultiple companies that I know
of mcdonald's nike, the ceo andthe ct like the ceo says to the
cto and to the HR team, onlyhire people from Ivy League
(23:04):
schools and the reason why isbecause they can then put on
their investment decks and intheir investment due diligences
that they give to investors andsay we have 40% of our
engineering team went to IvyLeague schools.
Right, mit went together.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
On this boat.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
All our oarsmen are geniuses, right and that is
perceived, and not justperceived, but becomes worth
more.
The company literally becomes,they say.
They say, for every ivy leagueengineer, the company's worth
five hundred thousand dollarsmore, and for every non-ivy
league engineer it's only worthlike two hundred thousand
dollars more,000 more in thebase of the company and but?
(23:44):
so, if so, that's why I think,but I've never heard anything
like that in terms of years ofexperience.
No one's like, oh, we've got abunch of gray beards, great, the
company's worth more.
No, like people you know,that's not so.
So I don't think there's like apressure to unfairly reward you
know more years of experience.
So there's no reason, I think,to create any kind of um, you
know, like law around that.
(24:05):
Also, it'd be hard to enforceand hard to interpret.
Educational attainment easy tointerpret, easy, you know, don't
, don't?
You're not allowed to askpeople where they went to school
or they can volunteer thatinformation.
But you technically can't useit in your hiring.
And if you do, we could youknow they?
(24:25):
Someone can sue you.
Someone who went to thecommunity college can sue you
and say, hey, I think that youguys have been using educational
attainment for your hiringpractices.
You shouldn't be doing thatbecause it's illegal.
You should be usingcompetency-based.
And now you couldn't have allthat paper trail of investors
saying, yeah, get more IvyLeague.
The CEO telling the HR, yeah,only hire Ivy League.
All that would be illegal.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Yeah, you're like, here's my completely nondescript
resume on my Harvard Law Schoolletterhead.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Right, exactly, I mean, yeah, they could volunteer
that information and it mightstill have an impact, but it
would tamp it down and it wouldsuggest this competency-based
approach.
Yeah, people are going to thinkthis is totally crazy, but but
I actually think it's not thatcrazy.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
I think this is actually a really good idea well
, the people who will be themost upset are the people who've
invested the most in thatsystem and would have the most
to lose from it going away butit's true, it's fun.
It's a good, interesting thingto think about I like it would
fix accreditation too.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
So this is where you would fix accreditation by
making it so nobody could really, uh, trade on the accreditation
status of their school.
They could only trade on theirown actual skills and
competencies, which then wouldmean people could go to school
anywhere.
I could start a school tomorrow.
That said, I will actually getyou the competencies that you
will need and and it's illegalfor employers to ask you where
(25:42):
you went to school.
So right now I it's equalizedum, actual education with brand
name, you know official legacythings adam, I am I allowed to
ask you where you went to school?
sure where'd you go school?
I went to school at a small,extremely expensive liberal arts
college called St John'sCollege, which is not Ivy League
(26:04):
, but it's.
Everyone in higher educationknows about St John's and so
when I tell people I went to StJohn's, they're like, oh, the
great book school, that's whateveryone says because it has a
very unique curriculum.
But I mean, yeah, st John's isnot exactly an Ivy League.
There's no like old boys clubthat I can tap into, uh, to
speak of, although there aresome wealthy members.
(26:25):
I mean, it's an expensiveschool.
So, just like some people whoare already very wealthy go
there like, uh, the, the, thecreators of the stag leap winery
, which is like a major wineryin california.
They're johnny's and they gavelike 50 million dollars to the
school once because they justthey're insanely wealthy.
I just like the name johnny,that's pretty fun.
Yeah, it's cool yeah, st john'sis a great program, great school
(26:47):
.
Yeah, yeah well.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
I went to the university of kansas.
I also have a my degrees from astate school.
No, no fancy bancy stuff for me, but I liked it, it also hasn't
come in.
I don't think it's really playeda huge factor either way for me
, but I think for a lot ofpeople that's a that's a foot in
the door or foot out of thedoor moment is what they have
written on that paper, and Ithink this could change at least
(27:10):
early prospects, because tryingto get a job and get your foot
in that door is so frustrating.
Anything that can make it moreequal, I think, for everybody is
probably better for everybody,even the equal opportunity.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Yeah, even though some people will complain, a
little bit fair.
It should be more fair, likeyou should be.
You should be, you should becomparing apples to oranges,
right?
Speaker 1 (27:30):
or apples to apples yeah, and you should want the
companies in this world to likebe getting better people and not
just people who like have astamp on their forehead.
Right, exactly, have a certainname.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Exactly, yeah, yeah.
And there's also these schoolslike I have a professor in
college who was a Harvardprofessor before he came to St
John's and in the class he saidhe said when I was at Harvard,
the first thing I would tell allthe freshmen is welcome to
Harvard.
You'll never get anything lessthan an A, because it's just
(28:03):
blatant.
Everyone knows this.
Everyone at Harvard knowsthere's just complete and
blatant grade inflation.
So everyone who graduates fromHarvard has like a 3.9, 4.0, 4
plus, you know, and it's likethey were all just doing college
like anyone else.
They were just you know.
That's crazy and that's just asign, that's just one indication
(28:23):
.
I mean, you hear these thingslike this all across the board.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah, I just watched not directly related to this,
but I just watched a movierecently called the Holdovers
with Paul Giamatti and it's anLooks good.
Was it good?
It is, it was good, I enjoyedit.
It's a Christmas movie, right,it takes place.
Yeah, it takes place place overthat time, but it's all set in a
(28:48):
the the environment is a prepschool, a high school prep
school, with these kids who areon that final stage to get into
those ivy leagues and likethey're worried about their high
school grades because it'llaffect whether or not, right,
they can go to those fancyschools which we know now
impacts the rest of their lifeso greatly on what trajectory
they're able to go on andeverything that will come out of
it, no one really explainedthat to me when I was in high
(29:09):
school.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
I didn't really pick up on all that.
I was somehow just dense aboutthat it would make such a big
difference.
Now I know that it would.
The thing is is it shouldn'tmake such a big difference,
right?
I'd like to propose an ideahere that I think is quite
important.
Wait, you've already.
We're already late in theepisode.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Not a solution.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Not a solution, just a way to think about higher
education.
I think it's important to thinkabout higher education like the
apartheid system of racism, youknow so, segregation or South
African apartheid.
I think in america right now wehave a legal apartheid system,
we have a legal wealth apartheidsystem, but we also have a
(29:49):
legal education attainmentapartheid system and it
reinforced meaning.
So apartheid generally peoplethink of apartheid as just
separating blacks and whites,but actually every system of
segregation, of apartheid are isactually a pyramidal system
where a certain race is thedominant race and then there are
actually rungs of differentraces all the way down to the
(30:11):
lowest, like lowest, uh, valuevalorized race okay, so like in
in south africa.
It was like the, it was like the, the afrikaans whites, then
below them were the english,then below them were the English
whites, then below them werethe lighter brown people, like
Indian people, then below themwere like half black.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
But you're saying, we should do this, we should not
do this.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
No, I'm saying, this is wrong and horrible and bad,
and what we have today is aneducational apartheid system.
And we could eliminate thateducational apartheid without
doing things like getting rid ofmeritocracy, like entrance
examinations.
I think entrance examinationsare great because it's an equal.
Everyone can go and take thetest and, yeah, whoever's ready
(30:57):
for it can get into the betterschool.
That's okay.
I think the problem is we'vecreated this educational
apartheid where if you've stoodon your kind of ladder of
privilege, you get this sort ofmoniker oh, you went to Harvard,
you went to MIT or you went toBerkeley.
I mean, some state schools havethis kind of thing Prestige
(31:17):
yeah.
And yeah, that's prestige.
And now that prestige unfairlydrives all kinds of future
privileges, if we just sayyou're not really allowed to
look at that, they can go and dothat for their own well-being.
They can go to those schoolsbecause those schools will give
them the skills they need to beexcellent at their future jobs.
But you can't actually just dothe skip, the jump to the name,
(31:40):
to the pretend you knowend thatthe name means you have the
skills, because it's not true.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
You're just wanting to bosh all the name value out
of.
You're like go to a place whereyou will get the things that
you actually get from the placeand then hire a person to get
the things that you willactually get from the person.
Don't trade on name value.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Don't buy the brand jeans because you think the
brand is going to make the jeansbetter it's right.
No, just pick up the jeans andgo like this and be like this is
a good pair of jeans, you know,and then get those jeans.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
You know, this t-shirt is not worth seven times
as much as that t-shirt,because it has the, because it
has right stop treating peoplelike like, like shoes or like or
like t-shirts, right, andinstead just treat them like how
functional is this?
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Treat them actually more like athletes.
So we already do this withathletes.
If you go to the Olympics,everyone there is actually the
best at what they're doing,because they actually had to run
and jump or run and run fast orthrow something and they had to
throw it further than everybodyelse Like.
Let's treat people and employeesand and and students more like
(32:48):
athletes and less like you knowcommodities, and I think that's
great because now now we'll havethis race to the top in terms
of skill building, in terms ofhow much value people can
deliver to society, not justkind of who can like sort of
strut more like a different, youknow, like a peacock, and sort
of get the right sort of youknow associations behind their
name.
(33:09):
Right, Right yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
It would fix accreditation.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
It would fix a lot of things about education, or I
think it would fix a lot ofthings about our economy.
Yeah, it's just get rid of theeducation apartheid with uh,
with.
That sounds good anyways andall you have to do is add one
little line to the law.
These are the lists ofprotected categories, and then
just add educational.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
But then everyone else has to redo our resumes.
We have to redo that's right.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Well, people would probably still share, like
they'd be like I went to mit.
But then it would be like, okay, you know, the hiring manager
has to be like okay, okay, youknow, like that they can't ask
any questions about it or likereference it ever, you know in
writing.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
I noted this fact and I have no opinions one way or
the other about it let'scontinue our interview.
It's like if you walked in andyou were like I'm super gay.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
they'd be like, okay, we can't do anything about it,
say anything.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
It's a weird thing to lead with, but all right.
Yeah, right Great.
Let's talk about what yourgreatest work failure was?
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Well cool.
This was a fun one.
I like it.
Out of the box solution toproblems with education.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Off the page Out of the box and off the page Because
we're taking the informationoff of the pages, alright well
thanks everybody for joining us.
Thank you, adam.
See you here next week.
Bye, thank you.
okay, I've got a solution.
That's what we're here for,okay what do you got?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
that's a higher education solution.
Oh no, I'm out, I'm out I'msorry you're done.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
No, no higher education is perfect.
Actually, we don't needanything's fine.
I checked in yesterday and theysaid they're good.
No more a year yeah right,jesus christ.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
okay, so here the solution.
So we've talked about in thepast in this podcast about
protected categories right, likeyour race, your gender, sexual
orientation, you can't hirepeople or not hire people based
on protected categories Based oncertain.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
yeah sure.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
And so you can't be prejudiced, you can't say well,
there are some exceptions.
Like the Supreme Court recentlysaid, you can refuse to make a
cake for a gay wedding yeah, youdon't have to hire someone who
says fire in a crowded theater.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Right, that's what.
That is what the supreme courtshowed.
Yeah, I think we're getting our.
Well, that's okay.
Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
You're right, I think that's right I mean with this
supreme court who knows right.
Okay, so I'm going to say asolution to higher education
would be.
It would.
So I think it would solve all,and I'm an expert in higher
(01:22):
education.
We can talk about my book.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
We have a whole book on this topic, but here's
another solution, which is weshould make educational
attainment a protected category.
Educational attainment Nowyou're not trying to say
(01:44):
edutainment, right, You're nottrying to like the thing where
they're like, we're like, we'regonna entertain you while we
you're trying to say attaining.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
This is not blues clues yeah, okay, okay, right.
So I'm saying like I'm notsaying you can't be prejudiced
against people you know,prejudice in the pot in the
sense of discerning right,deciding on people's qualities
for like a job based on whatthey know, like actual knowledge
.
I'm saying that you cannot askthem where they went to school
(02:09):
and what level of degree theyhave.
So I think we should make itillegal for an employer to ask
that, okay, and that would makeit so that instead they would
have to ask can you actually dothe tasks that are for this job?
(02:31):
And people would have todemonstrate that they can.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
So the where and what of your schooling would be like
behind closed doors, like apassword or your social security
?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
your social.
It'd be like what your religionwas.
No one could ask what yourreligion is in a job interview
okay, I got you, I got you noone could ask what your nation
of origin is.
They can't say like oh, that'syour name.
Is that mean, are you fromnorway?
Like you can't.
You can't do that in a jobinterview.
That's not a lot.
That's not legal okay it shouldalso be.
Oh, I see that you went to mit.
(03:06):
That should also not be legalbecause it's unfair and it
doesn't work and it's allbullshit.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
It'd be much better for the employers and for the
workers and for education forpeople to just not ask that now
not to stick up for these people, but you know who's going to
have a problem with this is allthe big institutions that charge
lots of money for the people tobe able to put their names on
the resumes which is what you'resaying shouldn't happen anymore
(03:35):
.
But wait, if I'm in the samebucket as everyone else, then
why did I pay so much for myeducation of college Exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Why did you pay for that?
Because it was an unfair that'swhat they're gonna apartheid
system, although they will alsosay obviously it's we're.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
We're providing something that's worth more
right.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
They'd say well they're, they're better, they're
smarter people they're betterpeople right, right, and so you
should pay attention to if theywent to harvard, or, or.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
MIT or whatever, then that should be reflected in
their interview and theirpersonality and how they come
off.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yeah, and things they've accomplished in the real
world, like they can be like.
Here's a project I did.
Here's a referral from someonewho I worked with who says I'm
really good.
Here's, you know, I built aproduct and grew it to millions
and millions of people.
I was super successful as amarketer.
Hire me as a marketer, orwhatever it is With your 35, way
(04:32):
more relevant to who you are iswhat you've been doing the last
10 years, not what you did forthe four years in college and
where that was yeah, 20 yearsbefore, right, and so if we did
this, I honestly think that ifwe, we did this, so there's a
lot of people out there I'm notlike a strict egalitarian, okay.
I'm not like, oh, I want totear people down, to make people
more equal.
I don't.
(04:52):
I don't really believe in that.
I actually think it's fine forthere to be fair fair in a fair
way, for people to excel waybeyond other people.
As long as it's fair and aslong as there's and we long as
we provide for the mostvulnerable people, I don't care
how the cookie crumbles andwhere people end up.
The problem is when it's notfair and when we don't provide
(05:14):
for the least vulnerable.
We're not really talking aboutproviding for the least
vulnerable in this episode.
We're talking about the fairmeritocracy, the fair
competition in society, andright now it it's just not fair
and it doesn't lead to goodoutcomes for there to be this
huge 900-pound gorilla on yourresume.
Oh, I went to Stanford or I wentto Harvard, and all of a sudden
(05:36):
, doors are all just booted openfor you for no reason.
These people are not moreimpressive than someone who can
say I did impressive things.
Look at the impressive things Idid.
That should actually count farmore than I'm.
I went to stanford oh, what'sthe point?
You know what's the?
What does that show?
Speaker 1 (05:57):
yeah, yeah.
And the system where doors areopened based on, like, who has
money to go to theseinstitutions or the networking
to get in, or whatever, thatdoesn't serve us better either
we're all served better by asystem that looks at the person
and not like the piece of paperthat they hold right, you know
(06:17):
and maybe, like I don't know, 50years ago you'd be like well,
how are you gonna, you know,know all that you know?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
but but now it's so, it's so simple, I mean you just
look at their LinkedIn, yeah.
Our social media profiles showeverything we do and have done,
and it's not hard to just scrollthrough the greatest hits of
somebody's LinkedIn and you cansee what they did.
Not to mention, we could justhave AIs that would look at your
(06:44):
whole thing and just tellpeople yeah, this is like how.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, no, I already have two eyes and I already use
those to look at no.
Ais?
No, I have two.
You're supposed to use A, justa single eyes.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
That's funny Two eyes .
Two eyes are better than one,two eyes are better than A,
although I am jealous, you know,by eye patches.
You know, I heard a thing aboutpirates wearing eye patches.
Do you know why they alwayswore eye patches?
Because they lost their eyes insword fights.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
No, that's not why To use the periscope thing.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
No, why no?
This is so crazy, but I readthis, I believe it's true.
Pirates would always wear eyepatches so that they could go
below decks and switch the eyepatch, and their eye was already
accustomed to the dark.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
What?
That's pretty cool.
Yeah, actually that's prettysmart, Isn't that cool?
Speaker 2 (07:37):
What?
So they could be out in thedaylight and one eye is covered.
Yeah, and it's bright.
So one eye is getting all thelight and then they duck under
the decks.
It's totally dark.
They don't want to be blind for20 seconds.
Early version of night visiongoggles.
You just switch it and now youhave a dark eye that you can
walk around down underneath.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
now that's crazy, isn't that cool?
Yeah, because it does make nosense that so many pirates were
losing one eye all the time.
I mean, like what?
Is that cool?
Yeah, because it does make nosense that so many pirates were
losing one eye all the time,right, I mean, like in a sword
fight.
That's a how do you get the eyeright?
Either you're gonna die oryou're not gonna die.
The idea of losing just an eyeand nothing else feels very
difficult they're gentlemenfighting.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
They only put the sword in one inch, no matter
where they hit you, they justput it in one inch.
It hits the eye.
One inch, one inch out, youknow, okay.
So reddit is saying that thisis a fate.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
This is not true it's not true, but it's just saying
no, this is a fable thatsurfaced a few years ago.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
It's not corroborated by any sources.
Oh, but I wanted to believe it.
Very few pirates were an eyepatch and if they did, it's
because they covered a missingeye.
Damn it I liked your storythough I know this says there's
no reason.
Practically this makes no sensebecause pirates didn't move
below decks during attacksAttacks so it doesn't make any
(08:56):
sense.
This is like a great urbanlegend.
Though it's so sticky and fun,pirates actually use it.
Hey, I bought it immediately.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
I was like great, I love it.
I did too.
I can't wait to tell everyone Iknow in all of my subsequent
pirate conversations yeah,exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Tell every single person alive.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
That's the bad thing.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
That's why I have to check all these things, because
I will spread stuff that was sosticky it pushed even what the
solution for today was out of mymind.
I have no idea now, I'm justfree floating, now I'm just
surfing.
We were solution highereducation.
Oh yeah, make make higher.
Make educational attainment aprotected category.
(09:33):
Yes, now people on the rightand like libertarians will hate
on this idea because they'll sayyou're attacking the
meritocracy, right, you'reattack, you're just, you know,
because what they?
What the big, the big debatehere between, like ideologically
, the debate between kind ofright wing and sort of left,
generally right wing and leftwing people although it doesn't
always break down that way, isyou know?
(09:54):
This is the way it's framed.
Left wing people want equalityof outcomes and right wing
people want equality ofopportunity within diversity of
outcomes, maybe even inequalityof outcomes.
Okay, there's major problemswith this.
One is the.
The right wing people are nottrying to get equal opportunity.
That's insane, because theydon't bring up, they're not
(10:15):
bringing up the base, right?
They don't say everyone gets,you know, free access to
education, free, and then theirmerit would actually decide
where they achieve.
They're putting huge bear.
You know what do they say?
Some people start the race onthe fin, you know, two inches
from the finish line and otherpeople start a mile behind.
So it's not equal opportunitybut the but the left wing.
I think there is a goodcriticism of the left wing that
(10:37):
equal outcomes is not actually agood goal.
A better goal is equalopportunity, and sometimes the
the left wing and the veryegalitarian members of the left
wing start to think of equalityof outcome as a success if they
can't get equality ofopportunity.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
So help me out.
Why would equality of outcomesnot be a desirable thing?
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Well, because in order to get equality of
outcomes, you have to bring downthe high performers and bring
up the bottom performers.
You have to kind of limitpeople.
Yeah, exactly, okay, okay.
So like, for example, in sanfrancisco, there was a big
debate a couple years ago whereI think they actually succeeded
at removing the entranceexamination for one of the
(11:21):
gifted high schools in sanfrancisco, like a famous gifted
high school, okay, and it wasoverrun with, like, asian people
.
Of course you know, I thinkthat's, you know, a compliment
to asian people.
Of course you know, I thinkthat's you know, a compliment to
asian people.
They're very, you know folk,they're culturally overrun.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
It's a very complimentary language.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Well, I'm not using complimentary language, but it's
, it's.
It was great.
You know they they people whoreally valued education, turns
out most of them were asian.
They got their kids into thislike high-powered, you know,
gifted high school and it wasbecause there was an entrance
examination so only people whohad prepared could get into it.
And these San Franciscoleftists tried to end that and
get rid of the entrance exam.
(11:57):
And then there was this hugepushback from kind of right-wing
San Franciscans which are likeleft-wing in the country, but
they're kind of right-wing here,they're like techies and they
were like no, no, no, no, keepthe entrance exam, because it's
like merit, it's a meritocracy,right?
so if you say, oh, we're gonnamake, we're gonna make, we're
gonna make educationalattainment a protected category
(12:19):
to the right wing type people,that's gonna sound like I'm just
, I'm doing this.
I'm trying to do the samestupid left wing move of like
trying to limit, you know, limit, uh, the the heights people can
reach in order to like createequality of outcomes.
But actually that's not whatI'm trying to do at all.
I'm trying to create, I'mtrying to make it so that the
meritocracy actually rewardspeople of merit and not just
(12:42):
people who have gamed the system, who were born on third base,
who then go to these elitecolleges and then get all like
all opportunities.
The rest of their life are justlike made easier for no reason.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Do you think it will have a huge shift on like?
Will it affect much like?
Will it change the stratus?
I feel like some of it gets onthe paper but like there's also
a lot of stuff that you get justfrom going to those
institutions, from like makingconnections and like you know
good old old boys clubs andthose sorts of things.
(13:14):
That may still.
I mean, there's no way to fixeverything.
But you know, that may still bea thing where you're like, oh
no, I'm still, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah, I see what you're saying sure I mean, if
you, if you and your friends arelike you know, like I heard
about this after me too that inthe finance industry, like if
you got a finance bro in newyork like kind of drunk and you
were just talking to him at abar, you'd be like so what do
you think this me too stuff isgonna have gonna lead to in your
like industry, they just tellyou like, yeah, we're not gonna
(13:46):
hire women, as much you know,they can't legally write that
down or like say that, likereally, you know, in any way,
leave a paper trail of that.
But they were just like, yeah,finance is just not going to
hire women because then we mighthit on them and lose our
freaking careers, I guess.
So that's a really bad outcome,sure, so you?
So you can be racist, and thisis what I'm saying you can break
(14:08):
those laws, but you just can'tdo it legally.
So the same thing would be forthis.
You could say, hey, hire peoplefrom ivy league schools.
But like, but then?
But no one would ever put ontheir resume the ivy league
school and you couldn't ask themdirectly where they went to
school you know?
Speaker 1 (14:23):
yeah, I guess I'm wondering if, like, if that, if
the prestige came from themactually being, on the whole, a
better like, do you think like,going to an ivy league does that
put you in a better spot tocompete in the in the work?
Speaker 2 (14:39):
world, absolutely not , absolutely not those people.
I find ivy league peopleextremely boring and and not
smart and obedient.
So there's no, you don't thinkthere's anything like worth,
like there's not a.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
what I'm wondering is like oh, is there a thing to be
?
Maybe going to thoseinstitutions you do get a better
, stronger education, you comeout as a better person?
Speaker 2 (14:59):
No, I don't think so, so maybe it's warranted that
way.
Actually, I think it's just alot of name recognition.
Oh, that's a good department.
There's a concentration oftalent density.
That happens to be in CarnegieMellon's mechanical engineering
(15:22):
department, and so you will getprobably a better education and
it's hard to get into that.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
If you're crushing all the courses at MIT, you're
probably a very smart Maybe.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
But even MIT.
For example, I know this for MITspecifically because an MIT
professor was brought in tocritique my program that I built
and designed and everyone wasso happy like, oh my God, we got
this prestigious MIT professorto review our curriculum.
He came in and I had anhour-long conversation with him
(15:57):
talking about the curriculum andmost of that was me explaining
to him educational sciences thathe did not understand or know.
He didn't know how to do anassessment strategy, which is
what any teacher knows.
Any even high school teacherknows an an assessment strategy,
which is like what any teacherknows.
Any like even high schoolteacher knows what an assessment
strategy is.
And this guy didn't knowbecause he knew a lot about,
like physics or some shit, likesome you know mit thing, but he
(16:20):
actually he wasn't a very goodteacher like he didn't know
basic educational science.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
It's kind of like if you went to the doctor really
deep in his own field but not inlike how to right.
It's like if you went to thedoctor really deep in his own
field, but not in.
Yeah, like how to right?
Speaker 2 (16:30):
it's like if you went to the doctor and the doctor
was, like I'm your podiatrist,so they're supposed to know
everything about like your feet,and so they do know a lot about
feet, but they don't reallyknow how to like do medicine of
the feet.
Like they just know all thebones and all the muscles and
all the, but they don't reallyknow the diseases and like the
cures.
You know that's like it's likethat's.
There's a big gap there, so Idon't actually think these ivy
(16:53):
leagues are providing muchbenefit, except for a selection
bias.
So they're generally.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
You know it's hard to get in hard to get a bunch of
strong students get in who arealready super prepared and
because of the name recognition,they can certainly bolster a
good success rate of thegraduates and then they have a
success rate because of the namerecognition I don't think.
I don't think there'snecessarily.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Uh, much of a.
The benefit is mostly theselection bias and the name
recognition.
I think the actual schools arejust like holding pens.
They're just like places wherethere's a lot of talent density
because of selection bias andthen those that.
That that feeds on itself andthe students get smarter and you
know they do things becausethey're.
They would have done thingsanyways and there's.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
You know, yeah, I don't, I I think I don't know a
lot about I just I think of itlike like a professional
sporting league where I'm likethere's got to be professors who
are all-star, like amazingprofessors, and I'm imagining
that the, the fancy schools, getto buy those professors and
have them come to their the waythat you buy like basketball
(17:57):
players, there's no the researchactually goes the other way so
if you actually look at theresearch, the the strongest
outcomes of students like themost learning.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
the most learning that students actually do is
under the most capable educators, not the biggest researchers,
and all of these schools try toidentify the biggest researchers
and make them into professors.
And so the evidence wouldsuggest the exact opposite.
And actually I think the bestproof of this is if you look at
(18:28):
Ivy League schools' professors.
The professors are not from IvyLeague schools.
They're usually mostly gettingtheir PhDs at state schools.
They work their way up to… andthen they're the best because
they went not to the Ivy League.
And then they get into the IvyLeagues as the professors
because they actually wentthrough a meritocratic process
(18:51):
outside of the Ivy Leagues,right.
And then they go into the IvyLeagues and now all the
graduates don't have the sameoutcomes as so it's kind of like
.
That right there shows thatit's like an emperor's with no
clothes on.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Yeah, and I was going to say I've heard that
conversation a lot.
Where they're talking about nowthere's too much emphasis on
research and publishing forprofessors and not as much for
teaching quality and engagementwith students and student
satisfaction, like they've putthe weight on the wrong foot
there and it has results thatthey want to get, but it also
(19:25):
turns down some other stuff thatthey may not have.
Turns down some other stuffthat they may not have.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
The other thing this would fix is a big gender and
just in general problem with jobdescriptions.
So job descriptions say theyalways say two things and both
of them are bad and should beillegal to say Only boys, no
girls.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
What you can't put that on a job you can't put that
either.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Oh my gosh.
So what they do is they say youmust have a bachelor's degree
or you must have a master'sdegree.
And then the other thing theysay is you must have five years
experience or two yearsexperience or whatever.
Both of those things should notbe allowed to be put on job
recs, Largely because women willunderestimate their abilities
(20:08):
and men will overestimate theirabilities, will underestimate
their abilities and men willoverestimate their abilities.
So if it says five yearsexperience, a man with two years
experience might happily apply,but a woman with four years
experience won't, because onaverage she'll think well, I
don't have five years experience.
But instead, if it said, must beable to run a sophisticated
campaign of digital marketing ordo this, do an actual?
(20:30):
Wrote out the competency thatyou actually are supposed to be
able to have.
Then men or women can be likehuh, yeah, I can do four of
those seven.
And it says if you can do fourof the seven of these
competencies you'd be a greatcandidate.
More seven out of seven, bettercandidate, right, but like four
at a minimum.
(20:50):
And if they did that, thatinstead of what kind of degree
you have, what, what um, whatkind of degree you have and like
how many years experience youhave, if you got rid of that
then there would be much bettermatching between competencies
and job, actual job roles sothat's kind of separate from the
(21:10):
school name thing, right,that's an additional thing.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
But I think this all kind of conglomerates into an HR
solution.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
You need HR practices to and HR only responds to
legality because HR is one ofthe most regressive parts of any
company.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
They're just trying to make the company sue's like
the one thing they're trying todo so that's why it's not a lot
of innovation and it's just likeright, stay between the lines.
All right, maybe we should dodouble.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
maybe we should say it's a protected category your,
your educational attainment, andit's a protected category how
many years you've worked in anyindustry or place, although
that'd be silly, because youhave to tell people where you
worked.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Yeah, making a requirement, I think, like you
were saying, competency-basedinstead of time-based.
Because you could have spentfive years being the worst
employee at a terrible place andbe like well, bing, bing, bing,
I'm good I can go there, and,as opposed to someone who spent
like a year and a half being thestar at a place and goes you
(22:16):
know what, I've outgrown thisplace I need something more.
You'd want a system thatidentifies the star that outgrew
their place and not the personwho languished until they were
let go and so and you know yoursis it just a bad metric
sometimes?
Yeah, sometimes it's good, buthaving it be the be all end, all
I think you're right is isputting it on the wrong spot I
(22:39):
think that.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
So I've never heard of people saying like.
So I've heard things in the endin the industry around the tech
industry, where people willunfairly say like, for example,
I won't say what companies, butmultiple companies that I know
of mcdonald's nike, the ceo andthe ct like the ceo says to the
cto and to the HR team, onlyhire people from Ivy League
(23:04):
schools and the reason why isbecause they can then put on
their investment decks and intheir investment due diligences
that they give to investors andsay we have 40% of our
engineering team went to IvyLeague schools.
Right, mit went together.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
On this boat.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
All our oarsmen are geniuses, right and that is
perceived, and not justperceived, but becomes worth
more.
The company literally becomes,they say.
They say, for every ivy leagueengineer, the company's worth
five hundred thousand dollarsmore, and for every non-ivy
league engineer it's only worthlike two hundred thousand
dollars more,000 more in thebase of the company and but?
(23:44):
so, if so, that's why I think,but I've never heard anything
like that in terms of years ofexperience.
No one's like, oh, we've got abunch of gray beards, great, the
company's worth more.
No, like people you know,that's not so.
So I don't think there's like apressure to unfairly reward you
know more years of experience.
So there's no reason, I think,to create any kind of um, you
know, like law around that.
(24:05):
Also, it'd be hard to enforceand hard to interpret.
Educational attainment easy tointerpret, easy, you know, don't
, don't?
You're not allowed to askpeople where they went to school
or they can volunteer thatinformation.
But you technically can't useit in your hiring.
And if you do, we could youknow they?
(24:25):
Someone can sue you.
Someone who went to thecommunity college can sue you
and say, hey, I think that youguys have been using educational
attainment for your hiringpractices.
You shouldn't be doing thatbecause it's illegal.
You should be usingcompetency-based.
And now you couldn't have allthat paper trail of investors
saying, yeah, get more IvyLeague.
The CEO telling the HR, yeah,only hire Ivy League.
All that would be illegal.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Yeah, you're like, here's my completely nondescript
resume on my Harvard Law Schoolletterhead.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Right, exactly, I mean, yeah, they could volunteer
that information and it mightstill have an impact, but it
would tamp it down and it wouldsuggest this competency-based
approach.
Yeah, people are going to thinkthis is totally crazy, but but
I actually think it's not thatcrazy.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
I think this is actually a really good idea well
, the people who will be themost upset are the people who've
invested the most in thatsystem and would have the most
to lose from it going away butit's true, it's fun.
It's a good, interesting thingto think about I like it would
fix accreditation too.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
So this is where you would fix accreditation by
making it so nobody could really, uh, trade on the accreditation
status of their school.
They could only trade on theirown actual skills and
competencies, which then wouldmean people could go to school
anywhere.
I could start a school tomorrow.
That said, I will actually getyou the competencies that you
will need and and it's illegalfor employers to ask you where
(25:42):
you went to school.
So right now I it's equalizedum, actual education with brand
name, you know official legacythings adam, I am I allowed to
ask you where you went to school?
sure where'd you go school?
I went to school at a small,extremely expensive liberal arts
college called St John'sCollege, which is not Ivy League
(26:04):
, but it's.
Everyone in higher educationknows about St John's and so
when I tell people I went to StJohn's, they're like, oh, the
great book school, that's whateveryone says because it has a
very unique curriculum.
But I mean, yeah, st John's isnot exactly an Ivy League.
There's no like old boys clubthat I can tap into, uh, to
speak of, although there aresome wealthy members.
(26:25):
I mean, it's an expensiveschool.
So, just like some people whoare already very wealthy go
there like, uh, the, the, thecreators of the stag leap winery
, which is like a major wineryin california.
They're johnny's and they gavelike 50 million dollars to the
school once because they justthey're insanely wealthy.
I just like the name johnny,that's pretty fun.
Yeah, it's cool yeah, st john'sis a great program, great school
(26:47):
.
Yeah, yeah well.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
I went to the university of kansas.
I also have a my degrees from astate school.
No, no fancy bancy stuff for me, but I liked it, it also hasn't
come in.
I don't think it's really playeda huge factor either way for me
, but I think for a lot ofpeople that's a that's a foot in
the door or foot out of thedoor moment is what they have
written on that paper, and Ithink this could change at least
(27:10):
early prospects, because tryingto get a job and get your foot
in that door is so frustrating.
Anything that can make it moreequal, I think, for everybody is
probably better for everybody,even the equal opportunity.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Yeah, even though some people will complain, a
little bit fair.
It should be more fair, likeyou should be.
You should be, you should becomparing apples to oranges,
right?
Speaker 1 (27:30):
or apples to apples yeah, and you should want the
companies in this world to likebe getting better people and not
just people who like have astamp on their forehead.
Right, exactly, have a certainname.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Exactly, yeah, yeah.
And there's also these schoolslike I have a professor in
college who was a Harvardprofessor before he came to St
John's and in the class he saidhe said when I was at Harvard,
the first thing I would tell allthe freshmen is welcome to
Harvard.
You'll never get anything lessthan an A, because it's just
(28:03):
blatant.
Everyone knows this.
Everyone at Harvard knowsthere's just complete and
blatant grade inflation.
So everyone who graduates fromHarvard has like a 3.9, 4.0, 4
plus, you know, and it's likethey were all just doing college
like anyone else.
They were just you know.
That's crazy and that's just asign, that's just one indication
(28:23):
.
I mean, you hear these thingslike this all across the board.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah, I just watched not directly related to this,
but I just watched a movierecently called the Holdovers
with Paul Giamatti and it's anLooks good.
Was it good?
It is, it was good, I enjoyedit.
It's a Christmas movie, right,it takes place.
Yeah, it takes place place overthat time, but it's all set in a
(28:48):
the the environment is a prepschool, a high school prep
school, with these kids who areon that final stage to get into
those ivy leagues and likethey're worried about their high
school grades because it'llaffect whether or not, right,
they can go to those fancyschools which we know now
impacts the rest of their lifeso greatly on what trajectory
they're able to go on andeverything that will come out of
it, no one really explainedthat to me when I was in high
(29:09):
school.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
I didn't really pick up on all that.
I was somehow just dense aboutthat it would make such a big
difference.
Now I know that it would.
The thing is is it shouldn'tmake such a big difference,
right?
I'd like to propose an ideahere that I think is quite
important.
Wait, you've already.
We're already late in theepisode.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Not a solution.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Not a solution, just a way to think about higher
education.
I think it's important to thinkabout higher education like the
apartheid system of racism, youknow so, segregation or South
African apartheid.
I think in america right now wehave a legal apartheid system,
we have a legal wealth apartheidsystem, but we also have a
(29:49):
legal education attainmentapartheid system and it
reinforced meaning.
So apartheid generally peoplethink of apartheid as just
separating blacks and whites,but actually every system of
segregation, of apartheid are isactually a pyramidal system
where a certain race is thedominant race and then there are
actually rungs of differentraces all the way down to the
(30:11):
lowest, like lowest, uh, valuevalorized race okay, so like in
in south africa.
It was like the, it was like the, the afrikaans whites, then
below them were the english,then below them were the English
whites, then below them werethe lighter brown people, like
Indian people, then below themwere like half black.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
But you're saying, we should do this, we should not
do this.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
No, I'm saying, this is wrong and horrible and bad,
and what we have today is aneducational apartheid system.
And we could eliminate thateducational apartheid without
doing things like getting rid ofmeritocracy, like entrance
examinations.
I think entrance examinationsare great because it's an equal.
Everyone can go and take thetest and, yeah, whoever's ready
(30:57):
for it can get into the betterschool.
That's okay.
I think the problem is we'vecreated this educational
apartheid where if you've stoodon your kind of ladder of
privilege, you get this sort ofmoniker oh, you went to Harvard,
you went to MIT or you went toBerkeley.
I mean, some state schools havethis kind of thing Prestige
(31:17):
yeah.
And yeah, that's prestige.
And now that prestige unfairlydrives all kinds of future
privileges, if we just sayyou're not really allowed to
look at that, they can go and dothat for their own well-being.
They can go to those schoolsbecause those schools will give
them the skills they need to beexcellent at their future jobs.
But you can't actually just dothe skip, the jump to the name,
(31:40):
to the pretend you knowend thatthe name means you have the
skills, because it's not true.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
You're just wanting to bosh all the name value out
of.
You're like go to a place whereyou will get the things that
you actually get from the placeand then hire a person to get
the things that you willactually get from the person.
Don't trade on name value.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Don't buy the brand jeans because you think the
brand is going to make the jeansbetter it's right.
No, just pick up the jeans andgo like this and be like this is
a good pair of jeans, you know,and then get those jeans.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
You know, this t-shirt is not worth seven times
as much as that t-shirt,because it has the, because it
has right stop treating peoplelike like, like shoes or like or
like t-shirts, right, andinstead just treat them like how
functional is this?
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Treat them actually more like athletes.
So we already do this withathletes.
If you go to the Olympics,everyone there is actually the
best at what they're doing,because they actually had to run
and jump or run and run fast orthrow something and they had to
throw it further than everybodyelse Like.
Let's treat people and employeesand and and students more like
(32:48):
athletes and less like you knowcommodities, and I think that's
great because now now we'll havethis race to the top in terms
of skill building, in terms ofhow much value people can
deliver to society, not justkind of who can like sort of
strut more like a different, youknow, like a peacock, and sort
of get the right sort of youknow associations behind their
name.
(33:09):
Right, Right yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
It would fix accreditation.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
It would fix a lot of things about education, or I
think it would fix a lot ofthings about our economy.
Yeah, it's just get rid of theeducation apartheid with uh,
with.
That sounds good anyways andall you have to do is add one
little line to the law.
These are the lists ofprotected categories, and then
just add educational.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
But then everyone else has to redo our resumes.
We have to redo that's right.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Well, people would probably still share, like
they'd be like I went to mit.
But then it would be like, okay, you know, the hiring manager
has to be like okay, okay, youknow, like that they can't ask
any questions about it or likereference it ever, you know in
writing.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
I noted this fact and I have no opinions one way or
the other about it let'scontinue our interview.
It's like if you walked in andyou were like I'm super gay.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
they'd be like, okay, we can't do anything about it,
say anything.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
It's a weird thing to lead with, but all right.
Yeah, right Great.
Let's talk about what yourgreatest work failure was?
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Well cool.
This was a fun one.
I like it.
Out of the box solution toproblems with education.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Off the page Out of the box and off the page Because
we're taking the informationoff of the pages, alright well
thanks everybody for joining us.
Thank you, adam.
See you here next week.
Bye, thank you.
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