{"id":4957,"date":"2026-04-02T19:27:51","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T19:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/4957\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T19:27:51","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T19:27:51","slug":"sergey-brin-says-google-hires-many-without-degrees-they-just-figure-things-out-on-their-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/4957\/","title":{"rendered":"Sergey Brin says Google hires many without degrees: ‘They just figure things out on their own’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whether it\u2019s Nike\u2019s Phil Knight<\/a>, LinkedIn\u2019s Reid Hoffman<\/a>, or Google\u2019s Sergey Brin<\/a>, many of the world\u2019s most influential business founders can trace part of their success back to Stanford University. Nestled in the foothills of Silicon Valley, the school has long functioned as a launchpad for tech\u2019s elite.<\/p>\n

But the rise of artificial intelligence is challenging long-held assumptions about the value of higher education. As tech reshapes entry-level work<\/a> and companies rethink traditional hiring pipelines<\/a>, the payoff of a four-year degree\u2014especially from elite institutions\u2014is increasingly up for debate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Still, Brin doesn\u2019t regret his own academic path. Speaking to Stanford engineering students<\/a> last month, he said his decision to study computer science was\u00a0not driven by a fixation on credentials.<\/p>\n

\u201cI chose computer science because I had a passion for it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was kind of a no-brainer for me. I guess you could say I was also lucky because I was also in such a transformative field.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even in an era when AI can write code, Brin cautioned students against chasing\u2014or abandoning\u2014fields of study based solely on automation fears.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t go off and switch to comparative literature because you think the AI is good at coding,\u201d he said. \u201cThe AI is probably even better at comparative literature, just to be perfectly honest anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jamie Dimon and Alex Karp agree: You can land a high-paying job even without a degree<\/p>\n

Brin met Google cofounder Larry Page in 1994 during his second year of graduate studies at Stanford. Together they developed PageRank, an algorithm they later renamed Google and would become a company in 1998.<\/p>\n

Google\u2019s hiring practices today reflect how dramatically the industry has shifted. The tech giant is now embracing workers without college degrees.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn as much as we\u2019ve hired a lot of academic stars, we\u2019ve hired tons of people who don\u2019t have bachelor\u2019s degrees,\u201d Brin said. \u201cThey just figure things out on their own in some weird corner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Between 2017 and 2022, the share of job postings at Google requiring a degree dropped from 93% to 77%, according to analysis<\/a> from the Burning Glass Institute. And Google isn\u2019t alone: companies including Microsoft<\/a>, Apple<\/a>, and Cisco have reduced degree requirements<\/a> in recent years, signaling a broader industry shift toward skills-based hiring.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s forcing a broader reckoning over what a degree actually signals and whether it\u2019s still a reliable proxy for talent.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think necessarily because you go to an Ivy League school or have great grades it means you\u2019re going to be a great worker or great person,\u201d said JPMorgan Chase<\/a> CEO Jamie Dimon<\/a> in 2024. For many roles, skills matter far more than credentials, he added: \u201cIf you look at skills of people, it is amazing how skilled people are in something, but it didn\u2019t show up in their resume.\u201d<\/p>\n

Palantir CEO Alex Karp<\/a> has made a similar case, despite holding three degrees (including a JD from Stanford). He\u2019s been outspoken about the pressure young people face to pursue elite credentials\u2014and dismissive of how much they matter once on the job.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you did not go to school, or you went to a school that\u2019s not that great, or you went to Harvard or Princeton or Yale, once you come to Palantir, you\u2019re a Palantirian. No one cares about the other stuff,\u201d Karp said during an earnings call last year.<\/p>\n

That mindset is spreading beyond Silicon Valley and Wall Street, according to Great Place to Work\u2019s CEO Michael Bush.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlmost everyone is realizing that they\u2019re missing out on great talent by having a degree requirement,\u201d Bush told Fortune<\/a>. \u201cThat snowball is just growing.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Brin, the implications ultimately go beyond hiring. With credentials losing their gatekeeping power, he said universities themselves may need to evolve:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI just would rethink what it means to have a university.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whether it\u2019s Nike\u2019s Phil Knight, LinkedIn\u2019s Reid Hoffman, or Google\u2019s Sergey Brin, many of the world\u2019s most influential…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[2104,5466,5467,5468,5469,1846,2687,5470,812,836,614,5471],"class_list":{"0":"post-4957","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sergey-brin","8":"tag-alphabet","9":"tag-building-your-career","10":"tag-career-success","11":"tag-career-tips","12":"tag-colleges-and-universities","13":"tag-education","14":"tag-founders","15":"tag-gen-z","16":"tag-google","17":"tag-jobs","18":"tag-sergey-brin","19":"tag-tech-workers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116336768343238475","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}