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This is a really important point. A lot of the "locked in" young types that I've seen in the startup ecosystem have very little experience of how the world works, combined with a tremendous arrogance about their own capabilities. They see the wealth and the power that some people have acquired in tech, and they associate that with success with goodness - or they become completely amoral.

I'm not sure how much these people would actually learn in college, but the idea is that some exposure to the humanities and the arts and to people who have different aspirations and life experiences would give them some interest in considering the consequences and moral worth of their actions.

Maybe that doesn't actually happen and these people will always be amoral. But that's the hope.





So in college you learn how the world works and in the real world you can't?

I can see how college can serve to lose one's arrogance, but why couldn't that happen while doing real work? (in general -- don't know about Palantir)


I wouldn't put it that way. I'm not talking about learning "how the world works" in the sense of how, say, a corporation functions. I'm talking about learning how to think. It's a much broader perspective on humanity than you get from an open office in Sunnyvale. Understanding human history and values and accomplishments.

You can't bank on college making you more moral than MBAs. All of those people went through college



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