I have read several articles recently, one from the New York Times and another from Forbes that discuss the necessity (or lack of) an advanced education. The article from the NYTimes is primarily on Marissa Mayer's life and work at Google. If you skip ahead to page 3 it gets into her hiring practices and what she looks for and considers when hiring. The article from Forbes is on the world's billionaires and in part summarizes the level of education for people appearing on the list.

The hiring practices of Marissa Mayer are described as:

She homes in on grade-point averages and SAT scores to narrow a list of candidates, many having graduated from Ivy League schools, whom she wanted to meet as part of a program to foster in-house talent.

And in the case of one candidate's resume brought on the following remark.

One candidate got a C in macroeconomics. "That's troubling to me," Ms. Mayer says. "Good students are good at all things."

This mentality resembles that of top college recruitment processes. Colleges want to recruit students that are best able to follow the rules. What I mean here is that there are many people that have great grades and exceptional SAT scores, but they don't immediately get accepted to Ivy League schools. It's the people that write the essays that the recruitment panels want to read, join groups and take positions that look good on an application. The hiring process with large companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc. want these same qualities in their employees. That being, employees that are able to do exactly what is asked of them.

This selection process differs from the selection taken to produce the people appearing on Forbes billionaires list. The selection of great founders doesn't depend on schooling, good grades and following the rules. In this case success depends on the ability to think outside the box, to see improvements in society and act on those ideas to build something great. One comment from the article is that many people appearing in the list never had any advanced education.

More than 20% of the 292 of the self-made American billionaires on the most recent list of the World's Billionaires have either never started or never completed college. This is especially true of those destined for careers as technology entrepreneurs.

These characteristics are less likely to work at a larger company because to those companies change happens slowly. They are less likely to lead the way breaking new ground, waiting instead for ideas to be proven. Especially ideas presented by entry level employees that have just graduated college wanting to change the world.

Characteristics of great founders versus great employees obviously doesn't hold true for everyone. I have met people from both sides that didn't fit the norm. Employees that graduated with 4.0s but were so brainwashed with a college mentality that thinking abstractly where tasks aren't just bulleted lists doesn't work. However, I can also understand why larger companies prefer graduates from prestigious schools. And I say good! I'd much rather be working along side people wanting to change the world than someone good at completing a task regardless if it is right or wrong.

My view is biased on the software and technology industries. I wonder how accurate this is within other industries.