Posted by 01-_- 1/20/2026
He seemed mostly checked out about a decade ago. Before Larry did. Basically right after G+ failed. More of a figurehead. And then not even that anymore.
It was always seen, in the first decade of the millennia, as a kind of very academia friendly/focused place.
I had impostor syndrome the whole time I was there as a result.
I think that reputation has lessened.
But, whatever attracts the most clicks goes, I suppose.
[1] For example,
- https://www.businessinsider.com/google-hiring-non-graduates-...
- https://qz.com/180247/why-google-doesnt-care-about-hiring-to...
Call me skeptical considering they've got hundreds of applicants for each open role and are doing AI resume screening. I'm not sure how 'abilities' is going to even get someone to the point where a recruiter will call them. If it does, apparently I've been applying to jobs all wrong.
What is more, our knowledge is increasing at an accelerating rate, and no traditional institution of education can keep up with it, even further, with teaching it. We must start teaching people how to learn and how to use the scientific method and the core of any modern methodology, instead of trying to teach them individual topics, and even less, specializations. That way, people can keep learning and keep pace with technological development.
Slow news day, I guess.
Plenty of highly intelligent people don't get educated because they see through the farce, or they decide that being submissive to the system is bad, or they test poorly (e.g. dyslexic), or their intelligence has found better opportunities.
Higher education does not make you more intelligent. Nor is it a good filter/measure of intelligence. Too many people chase it for status.
I always remember one very smart lady skiting to me about aiming for B grades and manipulating lecturers since she only needed a degree to pass HR requirements. I wasn't that smart.
I try to understand my successful friends that left school at 15. Unfortunately that is a biased sample of people without higher education: they are very intelligent, effective and hard-working.
In the schools in which I was, the best results were obtained by the students who were intelligent, but not too intelligent, because they were able to accomplish easily whatever was requested from them by the teachers and they were content with that, so they had good relationships with all teachers, resulting in uniformly good grades.
The students who were more intelligent than that, had difficulties, because they were frequently better than the teachers. Few teachers were OK with that, especially when the better students were unable to restrain themselves to not point at mistakes done by the teachers. Even when they avoided conflicts with the teachers about what is right and wrong, the better students were bored by what they were taught and they were reluctant to do various kinds of homework that seemed pointless for them. So they usually did not have good relationships with most teachers, with the exception of a few teachers, who either were very good themselves or they appreciated better talent when they saw it. So the best students had excellent grades only at one subject or two, with low grades at many others, so they ended only with average grades.
I enjoyed discovering new things and learning stuff that genuinely was interesting to me. Howeverlearning what a "big rock" symbol was in a map in geography class was the kind of stuff that made me want to chew my own arm for stimulation.
Plus not to mention having to accept wrong things as right because the teacher lacks the information and is just reading off a book.
I never did homework, except for a handful of times.
I spent my time programming and learning about industry stuff in the tech scene.
And I love working, because you're actually like building towards something, not just "trust me, this'll be valuable later on" (which my brain can't interpret as a motivator)
I envy those that get excited about acquiring credentials and getting formally educated about this and that, it's a way easier way to live in this world.
I don't know who had it more difficult. Both are careers worthy of respect.
Mechanics need more spatial awareness and are hands-on; it's relatively easy to change the oil or swap out a tire. He taught me how to do brakes once, but I didn't internalize any of it. It's not so easy to replace an engine.
I did full-stack development for five or six years. He actually came over once, and I taught him a few things about the modern front-end stack. How to run Node.js, how to install dependencies via npm, and how to use GitHub. All things he was curious about.
I would assume it's pretty annoying to work at a local or small-scale shop and have a car come in with modern electrical issues that only the manufacturer knows how to deal with.