Google co-founder reveals that "many" of the new hires do not have a degree

Not Really News / Historical Context

• Many commenters say Google hiring people without degrees is old news, citing reports and personal experience from the 2000s and 2010s.
• Early Google is described as heavily academic (PhDs, elite schools, “university-like” culture), but even then there were some exceptions.
• Several note that Microsoft and others have long had “degree or equivalent experience” language, so “dropping degree requirements” is framed as more branding than a real turning point.

How True Is “Many”?

• Some ex‑Googlers report knowing only one or two colleagues without degrees and never seeing such candidates pass hiring committees, so they doubt the word “many” reflects a significant percentage.
• Others share the opposite: multiple non‑degree or unrelated‑degree engineers at Google and other big tech firms, often entering via strong portfolios, referrals, or previous experience.
• Several people checked current Google job postings and saw explicit degree requirements, reinforcing skepticism that a non‑degree applicant can get through without a special signal.

Degrees vs Skills / Credentialism

• Broad agreement that real skills, projects, and experience matter more after the first few years; degrees are mainly useful as an early‑career filter.
• Multiple anecdotes: some of the best engineers had no CS degree (or no degree at all), while some degree‑holders underperform.
• Others counter that this is selection bias: highly motivated self‑taught people are rare; statistically, a random CS grad is more likely to be productive than a random non‑CS grad.
• Several see degrees as class or status markers rather than intelligence, and worry about gatekeeping and loss of mobility for non‑credentialed but capable people.

Hiring Mechanics and Geography

• People argue that applicant tracking systems and HR still use degrees (and school prestige) to cull resumes, making “skills-based hiring” hard to access without referrals.
• Location and address can further limit remote opportunities; some suggest omitting address to avoid automated filters.

Article Quality and AI Speculation

• The Yahoo piece is criticized as a low‑effort paraphrase of a Fortune article, with awkward segues into AI and power grids.
• Several suspect AI authorship or at least “AI-level” editing, pointing to clumsy topic shifts and near-verbatim paraphrasing.