Zoho Don't Need No Stinking Ph.D. Programmers

theodp writes "When it comes to tech academic credentials, Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu has The Right Stuff: a Ph.D. in EE from Princeton. But Vembu has eschewed Google's Army-of-Ph.D.s approach to software development in favor of tapping into the ranks of high school grads who would not normally go to college for Zoho. Seeing his youngest brother succeed at programming without a college degree convinced Vembu that others could follow that example with the proper training and guidance. And studying the best employees in his own company led to another epiphany: 'What if the college degree itself is not really that useful?' thought Vembu. 'What if we took kids after high school, train them ourselves?'"

Comments

Yay for common sense

[Lord Grey]

Whoa. Someone with common sense. Someone in charge with common sense! I need to get some people around my workplace to read this blog entry.

Based on a few years of observation, we noticed that there was little or no correlation between academic performance, as measured by grades [and] the type of college a person attended, and their real on-the-job performance. ...

While I'm sure that everyone's personal experience is different, this observation matches perfectly with what I've seen over the last 30 years or so in the field. On-the-job performance is the application of skills that are atually needed somewhere. Education in school is teaching something that may be needed at some future date. A new graduate still has to learn how to adapt their knowledge to the real world. Given what schools seem to be teaching these days, and the typical student's retention rate and enthusiasm, I'm not surprised that grads and non-grads are about equal in skill after working for awhile.

... That was a genuine surprise, particularly for me, as I grew up thinking grades really mattered.

Kudos for admitting that, Vembu. I hope others follow your example.

Re:Yay for common sense

[GreatAntibob]

Gotta disagree with you. College is NOT a glorified vocational school, even if some people in CS treat it as such.

Any decent college won't claim that the knowledge you gain is worth anything in 5 years. Their purpose is (and should be) teaching some fundamental principles of a particular major discipline (CS, in this case), and, more importantly, a set of attitudes and philosophies that teach you how to teach yourself. In engineering, you know your basic skill set will be obsolete in 5 years (and the Head of our EE dept. told us this before classes even began), so it's more important to get the basic mental framework in place and learn how to learn.

Even at my place of work, some talented high school students could probably be taught how to do the job about as fast and well as college graduates. The difference comes 2 or 3 years down the road. The people most able to keep up with emerging trends and extending their abilities tend to be the ones with degrees. And it tends to be the ones with PhDs or Masters that do better at it. The ones whose skill sets don't seem to expand as quickly or as much do tend to be the ones with less schooling.

Re:Yay for common sense

[Rogerborg]

Teaching someone how to learn is like fucking them into virginity.

Re:Yay for common sense

[bigstrat2003]

You paid for it just like the rest of us. The only difference is that your payment came (and comes) in the form of taxes, rather than student loans (or whatever else).

I'm not trying to make judgements as to which way is better. I'm merely saying you shouldn't be deluded into thinking that it was free (or nearly free, in your case), simply because you didn't write a check to your school.

Re:Yay for common sense

[Lumpy]

I'll take their taxes and free higher education over the mess we have any day.

Even if they quadruple my taxes, it's still far cheaper than what I owe for my education + the interest I have to pay. Only a complete fool thinks the USA system is better than elsewhere. Paying 4X my current taxes for 40 years will be cheaper than my student loans.

Re:Yay for common sense

[ahankinson]

Hm. You have a very charming witticism, but I think you're wrong.

You can teach critical thinking, which is a major component in learning how to learn. True, some people are better at it than others, but it can be a skill you pick up. If not, everyone would be born understanding Plato and Wittgenstein.

Re:Yay for common sense

[priegog]

Another way to look is that while your taxes go into funding a couple of wars for reasons you don't even know (no, it's not about terrorism, but I don't want to end up discussing this), his country used that same money to put him through college.
I'm not even going to get into the whole healthcare bit, but if you think paying somewhat higher taxes (and to a goverment who has it's priorities right on where to put that money) is NOT WORTH not ever having to worry about saving up money for your kids' college education (and even after that, watching them struggle to pay off the debt), then I don't really understand your way of thinking.
It all boils down to you (and people who think like you) apparently thinking that having higher taxes lowers europeans' acquisitive power, when that couldn't be further from the truth (could someone back me up with some links?). Now, having a huge-ass student-loan debt to pay... I think that would diminish your acquisitive power for quite a number of years.

Re:Yay for common sense

[David Greene]

Operating Systems -- The underlying principles are mostly the same Algorithms -- New ones are constantly being discovered but the most popular ones have been the same for 30+ years mostly (the undergrad level ones are generally not newer things)... Networking -- Some changes with wireless but most of the TCP/IP protocol that is taught in undergrad courses is the same Discrete Math -- Again mostly the same for the past 30 years Computer Organization -- Mostly this is the same (assuming the course on digital system design/k-maps/binary number systems/etc...)

My experience is that the ability to grasp the complexity of the above areas varies widely but generally the higher the degree, the better one is able to appreciate trends and anticipate them. The above areas only look static to one who hasn't studied them very deeply.

• Operating Systems -- Manycore is causing huge upheaval. Scalability is not a solved problem.
• Algorithms -- The algorithms aren't nearly as important as the ability to analyze complexity, a non-trivial skill most B.S. grads don't possess.
• Networking -- Networking goes way beyond the internet. High-speed interconnect is a big area of research, for example.
• Discrete Math -- Like complexity analysis, this is foundational knowledge. The concepts reappear over and over again. When one recognizes the patterns and how they interact across disciplines, interesting things can happen.
• Computer Organization -- This is very much not the same as even 10 years ago. We've hit the frequency ceiling and manycore combined with power constraints is fundamentally shifting what is possible. Things that seemed silly a decade ago may be the right answer today and some things we've taken for granted as "good" probably aren't anymore.

A higher-level degree is not an advanced apprenticeship. It is about knowing what came before and anticipating what's coming next. Someone with a B.S. is likely to think he knows everything. Someone with a Ph.D. is smart enough to know how ignorant he is.

Not everyone needs or should get an advanced degree. But to claim that such degrees are worthless is the height of hubris

No degree, bad citizen

[Improv]

College is a mix of vocational training (particularly important for some professions) and personal growth in the "learn to be a good citizen" sense. It's socially irresponsible to encourage people cut back on the latter, and being lax on the former results in a lot of "not seeing the big picture" kind of thing. I suppose it might be good for businesses that want to lock their employees into working for them long-term, but it's bad for society.

Turn it around

[theskipper]

Would Google's index (and infrastructure) be as good as it is if they relied on high schoolers?

Umm...no.

Non-cookie cutter programming requires serious, well-educated people.

And hiring manager

[AnonymousClown]

That's not true. A degree is a requirement for access to lots of different kinds of high-paying jobs, if only because the HR manager has a degree and decides on wages.

Whether a degree is actually useful in day-to-day work, well there I might agree with you.

and hiring manager....

Two stories:

The first one is about a supervisor I had who felt one must have a college degree to program device drivers. He blew off a really brilliant (I've never worked with a guy since who was that smart - even the PhDs at IBM) guy because he had only a HS diploma.

Second - a bit longer:

There's a company in SE Florida that needed someone to test circuit boards. A two year technical degree was all that was needed: plug board in, read test equipment, note failure.

When they were looking for someone, an EE shows up. They hired him. This guy then takes advantage of the tuition reimbursement and gets a MS EE. He leaves for greener pastures and maybe to actually use his education. Now, they list his job. Guess what? Requirements for thejob: MS EE. A test job. All because this guy got one on the job. They're reasoning? Well, because he got one he must have needed one.

It wouldn't have surprised me if they were one of the companies that said "We can't get any qualified Americans" and eventually hired a H1-b.