patrick.net

Rin says

Yes, but that's a part of the point. Legacy [family members being alumni] admissions is the reason why some people point to Boston suburb 'A', as a big feeder to Harvard/Yale/Pton but forget to mention that the parents had also gone there as well.

being from Boston or being a legacy.. carried no weight around Silicon valley.. we did things
different around here.

unclemat says

What's the secret for getting deals below FMV? :)

people who know how to bargin.. understand that "asking" is the top of the range and your "offer" will be far far below... therefore actual final deal is set btw those two points. So no many dont overbid or overpay... of course realtors and sellers will state there are other offers.. so you stick to your guns or walk.

And if your really sharp.. you already realize that prices over the long run go up only at rate of inflation.

swebb says

It has occurred to me (many times) that the super-negative bears are probably just not able to afford the house they want in the market they live in.

I think someone must have just bought a house. It has occurred to me (many times) that one of the first articles of post-purchase rationalization is for a new mortgagor to vent spleen on the market skeptics.

Never-mind bears v bulls. It more often seems to me it's a case of skeptics v the credulous. Who will win?

Let's go back to TW's original post:

thomaswong.1986 says

when i started to work in Tech firms 30 years ago.. there was NO such thing as ...

1) right degree

2) right school

3) prestigious tech firm

Followed by:

thomaswong.1986 says

The point is back in 1970s and 80s what these companies were doing ... wasnt being taught in your Universities... and frankly there was a shortage... so having some classes actually got you in... after all some founders never had a degree either.

Time for a little technology company founder history lesson:

IBM: Herman Hollerith (PhD from Columbia), going back kind of far
DEC: Kenneth Olsen (BS, MS MIT + MIT Lincoln Labs)
Sperry: Elmer Sperry (Cornell)
HP: Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard (Stanford)
Sun: Vinod Khosla, Andy Bechtolsheim, and Scott McNealy (Stanford)
Tandem: Jimmy Treybig (Rice)

I think Stanford receives almost 40k applications and sends out about 2500 offers with about 2000 offers accepted. The reason many technology companies recruit from highly selective schools is because the admissions committees have pretty much ensured that most of the grads are pretty smart. They could probably hire somebody just as smart from a second-tier school, but if would take more effort to sift through the chaff, and HR folks are a fairly lazy lot.

With a few exceptions for really fundamental research, universities have lagged behind commercial companies in R&D for the past century. So that's not exactly news.

ducsingle5313 says

Most top universities only offer *need based* scholarships.

I should have said, "Other than certain targeted minority groups, most top universities only offer need based scholarships."

Really smart Native American or African American students probably get money thrown at them by top universities, even if their parents are millionaires.

ducsingle5313 - there was no way to pick winners and losers
based on their educational background or prestige of their schools..
it was all a crap shot. As far as hirings, you got what you can get.

Your picking founders which is meaningless..
i was referring to staffers and mid level managers the hundreds of thousands of workers.
at best many in SV like myself came from SJSU, Chico, Fresno State and SCU.
Even today, SJSU workers outnumber the pedigree which are rare.

a far cry from so called media stories which is nonsense.

It should also be noted that in almost each and every one of those high tech entreprenuerial success stories, the founder was the rebel in that field, not only not following the foot steps of the "proven success path" but actually doing the exact thing to bury the previous "proven success path," e.g.:

DEC's Mini Computers displaced IBM Main Frame + Terminals in the business computing world

SUN's RISC processors displaced DEC's CISC processors for workstations.

"Creative destruction" is why American style market capitalism can sustain high productivity growth over the long run.

i'm a bear.
i could pay cash.
i don't because i'm cheap.

i also contend people that leverage themselves with only 3.5% down to buy a house, without sufficient savings for a rainy day, retirement and their kid's education are morons.

Fair Question.

I am a housing bear. Yes, currently the housing market is seeing a rebound nationwide. But I see how the cost of housing is still expensive relative to incomes. I see how there has been unprecedented market distortion due to the federal government and federal reserve in proping up housing values.

I already own a house (almost paid off). I could easily buy a second large house with a sizeable down payment. I will not do so until there are interest rates and home values are near historical norms. I just hate groupthink and economic cheerleading. That's my motivation.

thomaswong.1986 says

ducsingle5313 - there was no way to pick winners and losers

based on their educational background or prestige of their schools..

it was all a crap shot. As far as hirings, you got what you can get.

Your picking founders which is meaningless..

i was referring to staffers and mid level managers the hundreds of thousands of workers.

at best many in SV like myself came from SJSU, Chico, Fresno State and SCU.

Even today, SJSU workers outnumber the pedigree which are rare.

a far cry from so called media stories which is nonsense.

To both Thomas & Ducsingle5313, your assumptions about schools are a bit off the mark. Historically speaking, tech companies, not just Silicon Valley but the national spectrum: GE, Eli Lilly, DuPont, Allied Signal, Westinghouse, etc, have a national dragnet of recruiting from many schools, provided that the students have internships/CO-OPs, and a proper GPA with a junior/senior research project.

Now, with the above stated, this is where recruiting diverges... outside of tech, which is a reasonably flat field, areas like management consulting and investment banking are about elitism and go out of their way to exclude normal graduates. Thus, while GE gathers resumes from let's say Univ of Illinois (Chicago or Urbana), Univ of Conn, Univ of Kentucky, etc, a private equity firm like Lazard will almost never recruit from below the brand name level of a Univ of Michigan/Ann Arbor campus, regardless of the student's talent level. The reason for that is to keep the field, a clubhouse. Yes, they see Georgetown as *better* than a school like Michigan with top academic depts because it's private and has a cachet "political" DC name. For them, Georgetown is the political offspring of the Princeton-to-Harvard crowd.

Thus, some of the folks who later attempt careers in finance but started in a regular engineering school, like Rochester, attempt to find the easiest tech Masters dept at a Columbia or Univ of Penn, where they'd already done that level of work in prior undergrad studies. This way, they can join the recruiting activities of a Lazard, McKinsey, Goldman, etc, during student and alumni gatherings. In other words, it has little to do with real education. It's more an (alumni) ring knockers effect.

Rin says

To both Thomas & Ducsingle5313, your assumptions about schools are a bit off the mark. Historically speaking, tech companies, not just Silicon Valley but the national spectrum: GE, Eli Lilly, DuPont, Allied Signal, Westinghouse, etc, have a national dragnet of recruiting from many schools, provided that the students have internships/CO-OPs, and a proper GPA with a junior/senior research project.

No disagreement here. I did not intend my earlier posts to say that tech companies recruit exclusively from top tier schools, and obviously that's not the case. However, engineering graduates from Cal, Stanford, MIT, etc. generally have an edge over graduates from other universities - - - which is why parents want their kids to attend those schools. This is especially true for new college graduate hires.

And none of this should be interpreted as meaning everyone who graduates from top tier schools is smarter than everyone who graduates from second tier and lower schools.

unclemat says

What's the secret for getting deals below FMV? :)

Courthouse steps - 75% to 80% FMV all day long. It's happening 5 days a week, every week. You do this when you have the cash, and you know what you're doing.

Pending short sales that fell through - you must have a relationship with these realtors. Do what you say you will do, and you will get a first shot at it. Only 40% of all short sales actually close, and 25% of those closed are with the original buyer. Just to put things in perspective on short sales. Most of my deals are short sale that fell through. Just closed on a short sale that was in limbo for over 2.5 years. Got a great price for that reason.

Direct marketing - we sent out 800 letters and got one deal. It's closing in 10 days. You don't get a good deal with this method. You do this when you don't have enough cash to buy at the steps. This works well when you're in an appreciating market. The comps told you what happened, not what is currently happening and will likely happen in the near future. The data from the courthouse steps give you an indication of where the market is likely headed in the next 6 months. Owner is happy that he doesn't have to pay a commission. We don't have to compete and over-pay for the property. Win-win for both.

Bears aren't interested in houses. They're too busy eating hunny!

Call it Crazy says

unclemat says

What's the secret for getting deals below FMV? :)

Sleep with the realtor....

You got it all wrong. You don't sleep with them. You have them sleep with you. Then you offer a below market value because you're not happy with their performance. The ones you're happy with, you thank them, but you're not willing to engage in a competitive bidding. :)

SFace says

I'm afraid the competiveness is being applied in non-law fields across business.

Well, here's the story ... post-graduation placement from law school means top 15 (Harvard to Univ of Virginia), management consulting & investment banking parachutes mean top 15 B-school (Harvard to Northwestern). Outsiders, attempting to break into MC/IB ... go through a less subscribed to, Masters in Applied Statistics (or similar sideshow, less exciting dept) from Penn or one of the quantitative distance programs at London Univ, piggybacking off the reputation of LSE. Usually, these outsiders tend to have the most intellectual merit, as they need to get A's/A+'s as special students, without the help of alumni pulling 'em up by a cohort effect.

Now, once that's covered, the next tier of careers are a bit different; here you have engineers from what seems to be ordinary places, Univ of Rochester, but then, after 4 years on the job, the trajectory for management is still the same, top tier B-school like Columbia, followed by recruitment from a GE or a United Technologies in a Jr VP "Fast Track" program.