Summers vs. Chua

According to Larry Summers:

“In a world where things that require discipline and steadiness can be done increasingly by computers, is the traditional educational emphasis on discipline, accuracy and successful performance and regularity really what we want?” he asked. Creativity, he said, might be an even more valuable asset that educators and parents should emphasize. At Harvard, he quipped, the A students tend to become professors and the C students become wealthy donors.

“It is not entirely clear that your veneration of traditional academic achievement is exactly well placed,” he said to Ms. Chua. “Which two freshmen at Harvard have arguably been most transformative of the world in the last 25 years?” he asked. “You can make a reasonable case for Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, neither of whom graduated.” Demanding tiger moms, he said, might not be very supportive of their kids dropping out of school.

As a general rule, when I see somebody more successful than I, it's somebody with more discipline and steadiness. (People who claim to be more “creative” than I usually apply that creativity to impressing an echo chamber.)

By the way, aren't real self-made billionaires noted for working almost continuously? Weren't Gates and Zuckerberg A students before they dropped out? Aren't the C students on the fund-raising committee legacy students of inherited wealth?

I suspect that we see here an example of credentialed vs. educated. Larry Summers is explaining that, once you get a Harvard credential, it doesn't matter if you actually learn anything.