Statistically illiterate article full of wishful thinking. Let me count the ways.
1. Most important: it is highly likely that elite university graduates are enriched over background frequency among tech startups, and furthermore that the degree of enrichment increases with financial success. Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft, VMWare, etc. were all founded by people admitted/affiliated with Stanford or Harvard.
At least one person quoted gets the statistical fallacy here of this, but Wadhwa quotes it without understanding how it demolishes his argument:
> He notes that IITs only graduate 5,000 of India's 176,000 engineers every year, and that based on the number of companies started by its graduates, they were five times more likely than others to start tech companies.
2. Elite university grads are elite because they are the best in the world at hard science. Obviously they are more likely to understand stuff like restriction enzymes, operating systems, and machine learning than your average Directional University grad.
3. I HIGHLY doubt that UW is producing more "blue chip CEOs and university professors" than Stanford and MIT. UW-Madison does have a very good biology PhD program but this claim just does not pass the smell test.
4. Note also that "blue chip" is considered a compliment in certain parts of the article ("blue chip university professor"). This is a common self-contradictory refrain I've heard among critics of elitism. "Oh yeah? Well it doesn't matter if I didn't get into your fancy school, because I work at Google now." In other words, they're not attacking the idea of elitism or the validity of a name as a signaling mechanism. They're contesting the much more limited point of whether undergrad pedigree alone is the signal. Of course it is not and this is a straw man.
5. Lastly, I guarantee that someone has recently asked Wadhwa to name "his school". It is Harvard, as he is a fellow at Harvard. Was he an undergrad, grad, or faculty there? Then he's a Harvard man. Obviously he recognizes that "elite colleges" are marks of quality or he wouldn't include it as the first thing in his bio.
1. Most important: it is highly likely that elite university graduates are enriched over background frequency among tech startups, and furthermore that the degree of enrichment increases with financial success. Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft, VMWare, etc. were all founded by people admitted/affiliated with Stanford or Harvard.
At least one person quoted gets the statistical fallacy here of this, but Wadhwa quotes it without understanding how it demolishes his argument:
> He notes that IITs only graduate 5,000 of India's 176,000 engineers every year, and that based on the number of companies started by its graduates, they were five times more likely than others to start tech companies.
2. Elite university grads are elite because they are the best in the world at hard science. Obviously they are more likely to understand stuff like restriction enzymes, operating systems, and machine learning than your average Directional University grad.
3. I HIGHLY doubt that UW is producing more "blue chip CEOs and university professors" than Stanford and MIT. UW-Madison does have a very good biology PhD program but this claim just does not pass the smell test.
4. Note also that "blue chip" is considered a compliment in certain parts of the article ("blue chip university professor"). This is a common self-contradictory refrain I've heard among critics of elitism. "Oh yeah? Well it doesn't matter if I didn't get into your fancy school, because I work at Google now." In other words, they're not attacking the idea of elitism or the validity of a name as a signaling mechanism. They're contesting the much more limited point of whether undergrad pedigree alone is the signal. Of course it is not and this is a straw man.
5. Lastly, I guarantee that someone has recently asked Wadhwa to name "his school". It is Harvard, as he is a fellow at Harvard. Was he an undergrad, grad, or faculty there? Then he's a Harvard man. Obviously he recognizes that "elite colleges" are marks of quality or he wouldn't include it as the first thing in his bio.