Exactly. Look at big box retailers -- Target and Walmart all give preferential treatment to manufacturers willing to sell at a discount or give special benefits to the retailer.
Better shelf placement, positioning near the front of the store, checkout placement ... All assets that retailers can exploit to woo vendors. Amazon is doing the same thing. Their assets are less tangible but offer just the same incentive to cooperate and play by their rules.
If you don't, you get pushed to the back of the store, placement out of eye level, etc.
Ridiculous. To say that a top-tier university produces a better employee, or business leader, is to say that a person's individual personality, upbringing or work ethic plays no part.
A high GPA - that's an understandable requirement - but to base it arbitrarily on a 'top-tier' university is depriving qualified, talented employees from consideration.
Turning away a qualified candidate isn't the bad outcome for a hiring process - hiring an unqualified worker is. So if the trade off for avoiding the latter is some of the former, it is arguably worth it (and Thiel is likely in a good position to know what the appropriate ratios are)
I am so tired of hearing that argument. There is not a line of super qualified people banging on your door to get a chance to interview at your company.
Unless your are google or facebook, you are not going to be able to just turn away qualified people. It makes it too easy for your competition.
Perhaps they feel that being admitted to a top-tier university is indicative of the quality of a persons upbringing and work ethic? I would not agree, but perhaps that's an assumption in play here.
I, for example, went to a state school because quite frankly, I was not really interested in taking on hundreds of thousands in debt to finance a college education. I was accepted to a couple of top-tier universities but for financial reasons, attendance at such schools was not feasible.
Actually there is a difference: Employees from Top Tier universities make better slaves .i.e. They have been trained to "Do as you are told" (no creativity allowed), and "Wait for your turn"
Can't agree with that, even though I dropped out of Harvard to be a Thiel Fellow. Top tier uni students in my experience tend to be quite a few deviations of individual above the norm.
Creativity/individuality/freedom/etc are all very highly valued and encouraged at the best schools. Harvard was remarkably open and innovative. MIT even more so.
(Tangential, in response to the article - Harvard's very accommodating and even encouraging of people taking time off school to pursue other things. They have an indefinite leave of absence policy, which means that if I ever decide, 2, 5, 10, or 20 years down the line that I'd really like to go back to school and get a degree, they'll let me come back. Very nice and farsighted people.)
Harvard's very accommodating and even encouraging of people taking time off school to pursue other things. They have an indefinite leave of absence policy, which means that if I ever decide, 2, 5, 10, or 20 years down the line that I'd really like to go back to school and get a degree, they'll let me come back
That's great. I wonder if many (any?) other universities have such a policy? At my school, I would have to formally re-apply after being gone for a year or so. That's the sort of policy I would encourage my children to take into account when they're choosing where to go to school.
Seems excessive and clearly obvious to consumers. This case indicates seems to indicate that retailers - Walmart, for example - would need to place signage in front of their products announcing that they make a profit on a sale.
The point of business is to make money. Consumers actually need to be reminded of that?
This article suggests that it is Groupon's fault. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not even the most aggressive account executive could force this plan down the throat of a business owner. They solely elect to proceed with a Groupon promotion or not.
The fact that it was so successful is hardly a negative for Groupon -- quite the opposite, in fact. It suggests instead their command over marketing capabilities and their eager customer base.
This business owner should have worked with Groupon to design a promotion that covered costs - so that this wasn't so financially damaging.
I'm interested in this opp as well... Curious if anyone else has tried the course they are promoting, or might suggest this as a possible way to learn Ruby for beginners.
Look at companies like CollegiateLink (www.collegiatelink.net) or Orgsync (www.orgsync.com) ... They collect this type of non-academic/participation based data and use it to, among other things, generate 'extra-curricular transcripts' for students to document the activities and organizations they participated in while in college. Might be an interesting model for your approach.
As a former student user, I vaguely remember students self declaring their affiliations/memberships, but them having to be validated by an organization contact on campus -- like an advisor or group president.
Thanks a lot. This is really useful. If I can ask " Did you enjoy filling the data during your college days? Is there something motivating/de-motivating to input data?
The school kept trying to motivate us by pitching the selling points of this 'activities transcript' and how it would make it easier to show prospective employers what we were up to while earning a degree... I'm not sure I particularly enjoyed it, but the system made it as easy as possible so it only took a minute. It became a less popular Facebook, basically -- you'd keep it updated just like you did your Facebook profile.
Better shelf placement, positioning near the front of the store, checkout placement ... All assets that retailers can exploit to woo vendors. Amazon is doing the same thing. Their assets are less tangible but offer just the same incentive to cooperate and play by their rules.
If you don't, you get pushed to the back of the store, placement out of eye level, etc.