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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?'"
Google's hiring criteria are a joke these days, and I'm not just saying that as an outsider: I used to work there and take part in interviewing etc.
They essentially give a "+100 score" bonus to candidates with a PhD, which doesn't necessarily get them hired, but does get them through the first level of filtering. It's absurd that this can give fresh-out-of-graduation candidates a chance at an interview, whereas someone with 10 years of industry experience doesn't.
It's not just the worst hiring policy I've ever seen - it's also a form of age discrimination. Getting a PhD in Computer Science and related fields wasn't all that popular until just recently (and by recently I mean the last decade). Hell, getting a degree in CS wasn't all that popular until "recently" either. So what we're seeing is a PhD in CS is more common for the younger (It'll bite Google eventually, because they're going to end up with a mono-culture of academics. Or more people will realize just how absurdly discriminatory the PhD requirement is, and how 10, 20 or even 30 years of experience in the field counts for a hell of a lot more than a dissertation about one specific project. Don't get me wrong: every company in this industry needs its share of PhDs, but it's idiocy to make your entire company from them.
I don't have a PhD or even Masters, and even that gives me issues. Getting a Masters wasn't all that popular until "recently" either. My goal was to basically get a decent degree as fast as possible and get started in the real world. But now every company - and even immigration for most countries - wants to see a Masters, not a Bachelor. Again, that's just a "recent" fad as everyone tries to increase the value of their degree because they're so damn popular. So it ends up being another form of age discrimination. It's pretty weird having that happen to me when I'm not even 40. I'm guessing there's a lot of folks reading this in an older age group than me who've seen far worse.