Welcome back to our Sunday edition, where we round up some of our top stories and take you inside our newsroom. Happy Father’s Day to all of the committed and inspiring dads out there. I know I’m forever grateful to mine, Larry Heller, for his love and advice over the years — including about Business Insider!
You might not know who Alexandr Wang is, but you’re about to. Meta effectively just spent about $15 billion to hire the 28-year-old CEO of Scale AI, BI’s Peter Kafka writes.
On the agenda today:
But first: Forget college degrees.
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This week’s dispatch
Getty Images; Ava Horton/BI
Big Tech is turning against college
Julia Hornstein covers tech and other startups in the defense sector for Business Insider. One increasingly common refrain from some leaders in this space is their disdain for higher education.
I talked with Julia about her recent, great, in-depth article on the subject.
Is the negative view on higher education from some tech leaders more about the value of school versus experience, or what’s being taught in schools?
It’s both. The founders I spoke to see college as expensive and inefficient. Top four-year schools can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some don’t want to miss the AI boom while in class. Others want to become financial providers as soon as possible.
Some also perceive an ideological tilt at universities, a belief that the Trump administration has also espoused. One founder who has built a billion-dollar company told me he doesn’t see value in a liberal arts education and has “yet to meet people that consistently rave about that as being super useful.”
Palantir is ideologically opposed to college coursework, too. Its CEO, Alex Karp, said in his new book that colleges are “walled off from the world.” The Meritocracy Fellowship, the company’s internship for high school grads, tells applicants to “skip the indoctrination” of college.
You cover defense tech. Is this issue bubbling up more in this sector than others, and if so, why?
Skipping college for an opportunity in tech or startups isn’t uniquely a defense tech phenomenon. I interviewed non-college founders building marketing platforms, AI startups, and nuclear fusion companies. That said, many in defense tech question higher education. Palantir cofounder and investor Peter Thiel, who has both a BA and JD from Stanford, has called higher ed “the worst institution we have.”
Joe Lonsdale, another Palantir cofounder and a venture capitalist, cofounded a college in Austin in 2022 out of a frustration “with how modern universities stifle free thought and academic diversity,” he wrote.
Are young people eager to work in tech taking gap years or skipping college altogether?
Some founders I spoke with decided to ditch college in their early teens. A few dropped out of high school. The Palantir fellows are different: For now, they told me, they’re taking a gap year and holding their seats in college. Their decision about college might depend on whether Palantir makes them a full-time offer they can’t refuse.
Silicon Valley’s little whisperer
Screenshot from X
Serena & co. had Gossip Girl, and Bridgerton has Lady Whistledown. Silicon Valley has Arfur Rock, the anonymous X user who posts scoopy info about startups and VC.
Identifying only as an “anon GP at your favorite multistage-VC,” Rock has the tech industry in a twist over their true identity. Some regard Rock’s transparency as a breath of fresh air, while others question their motives.
Here’s what Rock told BI about the guessing game.
Dear Goldman Sachs interns …
Goldman Sachs
About 2,600 students are kicking off their summer at the investment bank. Working on Wall Street can be overwhelming, though, so BI spoke with three former Goldman interns who rose through the ranks.
They encourage interns to bring a positive attitude, share fresh ideas, and take advantage of the “coffee culture.”
How to land a postgrad offer.
Also read:
Big financial risks are scary right now
Tyler Le/BI
Recession worries and inflation are keeping Americans on the edge of their seats. Some are stuck in their jobs, and others are reminiscing about the days of dirt-cheap mortgage rates.
BI’s Emily Stewart broke down how Americans are confronting this uncertainty — and what that means for their spending. While it may not be the best time to take a big leap, the impact on the broader economy can be even trickier to decipher.
Stuck reading tea leaves.
PE takes a pause
ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images
The path to a prestigious corner of Wall Street is hitting a roadblock.
JPMorgan and Apollo recently announced plans to slow down the ever-earlier recruitment of junior bankers to PE jobs. The decision created shockwaves among young Wall Streeters, who had spent years preparing for the well-worn recruiting cycle that’s now been put on hold.
But the impact could extend well beyond those in finance.
And it’s not a bad thing.
Also read:
This week’s quote:
“It’s human nature to gravitate toward shortcuts.”
— Cedric Bryant, the president and CEO of the American Council on Exercise, on Americans’ desire for quick-fix fitness hacks.
More of this week’s top reads:
- Oracle appears to have named two new presidents.
- Dell wanted everyone back in the office five days a week. Employees say it’s been open to interpretation.
- How a flood of retail investor money into private markets could stress the whole financial system.
- Citi doubles down on WFH, offering two weeks of fully remote work in August. See the memo here.
- Documents reveal what tool Google used to try to beat ChatGPT: ChatGPT itself.
- GitHub’s CEO says startups can only get so far with vibe coding.
- New York’s tech industry has a warning for San Francisco: We’re coming for your AI crown.
- Hulk Hogan wants to reimagine Hooters restaurants as his Real American Beer brand makes a new bid to save the chain.
- A big shake-up at Amazon finally brings Whole Foods into the fold.
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Microsoft is prepping an AI Copilot for the Pentagon.
The BI Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Grace Lett, editor, in Chicago. Amanda Yen, associate editor, in New York. Akin Oyedele, deputy editor, in New York. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York. Elizabeth Casolo, fellow, in Chicago.
