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Hire track records over pedigree
Most school achievements are fake, and a Silicon Valley trend of hiring prodigies is hype. A startup that failed still shows someone can build one. Plenty of Replit's hires are normal people who do extraordinary things.
Young people with no track record but real energy and excitement count for a lot, because that energy is infectious and they are learning AI inside out. Replit has a bunch of 16-year-old interns, and one is doing security. Others are 18 or 19 and taking time off from college, and some are thinking of dropping out as well.
The hiring runs across the board. The pedigree is mostly ignored, and the story of ordinary people doing extraordinary things is the one the company prefers.
Why do credentials predict job performance poorly?
Frank Schmidt and John Hunter reviewed decades of hiring research in a 1998 meta-analysis published in Psychological Bulletin. They found that work sample tests, which have candidates do a sample of the actual job, ranked among the strongest predictors of performance. Years of education ranked among the weakest. Their review compared nineteen different selection methods, from interviews to reference checks.
How did apprenticeships judge skill before degrees?
In medieval European guilds, a young person trained as an apprentice, then worked as a journeyman, and became a master by producing a masterpiece judged by existing masters. The word comes from the French chef-d'oeuvre, meaning the work that proves a craftsman's mastery. Judging a finished piece of work meant the guild looked at what the candidate could build. Guilds also set how long an apprenticeship lasted, often several years.
Why do some programs pay young people to skip college?
The Thiel Fellowship, launched in 2011 by the investor Peter Thiel, offers young people money to pursue projects instead of finishing a degree. It has funded founders and researchers in their late teens and early twenties. The program is one of several attempts to test whether a degree is necessary for building a company. Its alumni include founders of startups in software, biotech, and education.
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