Posted on 03/14/2019 9:24:15 PM PDT by Beave Meister
The perception that only elite schools produce elite leaders needs to die.
The No. 1 company in last year’s Fortune 500 was Walmart Inc., with $500 billion in revenue. That would make its chief executive, Douglas McMillon, a pretty important and powerful executive, don’t you think? Can you guess where he went to college? The University of Arkansas. He has an MBA, too. From the University of Tulsa.
Second on the list was Exxon Mobil Corp. Its CEO, Darren Woods, went to Texas A&M. Third was Berkshire Hathaway Inc., run by the man many consider the greatest investor who ever lived: Warren Buffett. He spent three years at the Wharton School before transferring to the University of Nebraska, from which he graduated. He was then rejected by Harvard Business School. (He got his MBA from Columbia Business School, where he famously learned from the great value investor Ben Graham.)
Fourth was Apple Inc., whose chief executive, Tim Cook, is arguably the most important executive in all of tech. He went to a university better known for football than academics: Auburn.
Are you sensing a pattern here? General Electric Co.’s Lawrence Culp went to Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. Cardinal Health Inc.’s Michael Kaufmann went to Ohio Northern University in Ada, Ohio. AT&T Inc.’s Randall Stephenson went to the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond, Oklahoma. General Motors Co.’s Mary Barra went to Kettering University in Flint, Michigan. (Kettering used to be the General Motors Institute before it was spun off from GM in the early 1980s.)
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagobusiness.com ...
Yes, you can absolutely go to very good state schools or regional private schools and with smarts and hard work, do very well for yourself.
BUT THAT’S NOT THE POINT. Haven’t we all learned that in the USA, government runs, plans and organizes the country? We all agree there is such a thing as a ‘deep state’ in Washington DC, do we not? Well - these people predominantly come out of these Ivy and Top 20 universities. These people caught in this scandal come from law, finance, media and entertainment. They aren’t stupid - they know to join America’s RULING class, it really helps to have a diploma from these universities.
...decades ago when degrees meant something.
There, I made it into a true statement for you.
You’re welcome.
Ah, but where did all the top politicians go to school?
>>The No. 1 company in last year’s Fortune 500 was Walmart Inc., with $500 billion in revenue. That would make its chief executive, Douglas McMillon, a pretty important and powerful executive, don’t you think? Can you guess where he went to college? The University of Arkansas.
That’s nothing, Hillary Clinton sat on the board of directors at Wal-Mart and got the job because she was married to the governor at the time.
And in Arkansas, University of Arkansas carries a bit more weight.
Like encountering University of Texas or A&M alumni in the corporate ladder in Texas. Sometimes it may help you. Others it could be a drawback. Depends where your corporate peers went and if they give a damn about “traditions”.
I agree with your basic premise.
However, Texas A&M is one the best “oil schools” in the world, for engineers and for executive managers, so it’s not surprising that Exxon’s CEO went there.
Apparently not
Correct. My son Graduated from an impressive school but down the list a ways. Some of the Top companies don’t even recruit “ that far down the chain”. It is sad. While a degree can open some doors, zF up and you can be done.
Exactly Ivy League is about connections more than anything else..
Every study done in the subject shows that an Ivy League degree vs a non Ivy League degree makes no difference on avaerage to earnings or success
Not only bribes but there are many set asides in the Ivys. for legacy students
for monied students
for color
for geographic location
Lin Wood, the lawyer representing Nicholas Sandmann, got his undergraduate and law degree from Mercer University in Macon, GA. Wood somehow succeeded without a law degree from Yale, Harvard or Princeton.
I am an attorney who has worked in law firms and in real estate development firms. I have worked with people from all the Ivies and other “elite” schools. Of the three most talented people I have worked with in a 35-year career, two were from the University of Maryland and one didn’t finish high school. The “elite” schools are mainly social breeding grounds where one makes connections with the rich and famous. Unfortunately, “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” is axiomatic.
A lawyer told me that it matters where you went to law school in the first 5 years after graduation...after that it’s strictly PERFORMANCE.
It’s easy to see where SNL’s spin comes from since many of its writers are Harvard grads.
You certainly have made the point that the top snakes in the swamp come from the Ivy League. The point of the article is that top performing business executives don’t.
It has to be!
All you need to do is listen to these supposed 'Ivy League grads' when they speak off script.
It's like they have never had instruction in history, economics, or in speaking/writing the English language, etc. They routinely get it wrong both in what they say and the way they express themselves.
While the top positions are not necessarily held by Ivy League graduates, throngs of the top tiers in all businesses graduated from those schools.
These degrees open doors that would otherwise be closed to them. Many certainly fail, specially if they didn’t authentically get into those schools. The people that deserved to be in those schools end up in well paying positions and retire early with a lifetime of wealth to spend. They also end up in the senior executive service in the federal government and end up influencing the rest of us, often with leftist nonsense.
I personally know many examples proving the negative.
One particular CEO here in town who is known to be an arrogant idiot, widely derided as his name rhymes with “Garbage”. Earned a degree from Carnegie-Mellon which is about all one ever needs in the Pittsburgh job market.
Question for the board.
What top executive graduated from a no-where school called Eureka College?
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