This content was created by Eric Siu. This content was uploaded by Eric Siu. This is a YouTube video titled "Does It Matter Which School You Go To? University vs Hussle:" (uploaded 2025-09-19) containing an English conversational discussion between Eric Siu and another participant (labeled SPEAKER B). They debate whether the university you attend (tier 1 schools like Stanford/Harvard versus tier 4–5 schools like Arizona State) predicts career success, trading anecdotes about a hardworking ASU CEO, mixed experiences with Harvard grads, themes of resilience vs. entitlement, street smarts vs. book smarts, and cultural expectations around top schools.
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A lot of the people that didn't do well in school end up doing really well as a business person or a leader.
But on the flip side, when we interview people from tier 5, tier 4, tier 3, they're more hungry. Like my CEO, I believe he's from Arizona State University. I don't know what tier that would be, but I'm going to guess 5.
I think tier 5. Yeah.
Yeah. And the guy just works his tail off. He's in Cuba right now. On a family vacation. All right.
He's Cuban?
Uh, no, his wife is.
Okay.
And they're going seeing their parents, can't always get out of the country, so they go see them.
Yeah.
And it's a holiday. I know he has a client call today, a potential client call and a pitch, and he'll figure out internet and everything. His pitch today?
It's Labor Day.
Yeah. He doesn't care.
Wow.
Right? Because that was when their assistant gave time. And this is a, Multibillion-dollar company, not like 1 or 2 or 5, like well, well, well into the billions.
Yeah.
Doesn't care.
Yeah.
He'll do whatever for work and business and grind it out. And I don't know the last time he didn't work on a Saturday or a Sunday.
Yeah.
I know he's been better now and he doesn't work Christmas or Thanksgiving, but when I say he doesn't work Christmas or Thanksgiving, he probably spends at least 30 minutes to an hour checking emails, making sure there's no fires or anything, even on a holiday.
That's fascinating. But you remember, so again, like you and I have met a lot of people, tier 5, they maybe they aren't necessarily the best book smart-wise, but they're very street smart, very practical.
Yeah.
When you look at tier 1, you look at what Jensen said. So I was rewatching a video today this morning and one guy was asked, so, you know, what would you say to the Stanford students over here? This guy's like sitting, right? He's kind of like a little overweight too, but he's like, yeah, so what do you think about like, you know, the The Stanford, like, what would you, what lessons would you give to our students here? And then Jensen's over here, he's like, he pauses, he's like, you know, if I were to say any one thing, Stanford's an amazing school, you guys really work really hard, you know, best of the best students, you know, top school on the, one of the top schools on the planet. But, you know, what I've learned is that people that go to schools like this, right, have very high expectations and people that have very high expectations have very low resilience. And there's a certain entitlement that he's basically saying that, right? Yeah. And he's saying like—
So similar.
Yeah, similar thing to what you're saying. And I do see that. I will say though, There are a couple of Harvard people that I worked with. We have someone on our team from Harvard and they're amazing, right? They work really hard. There's a massive chip on their shoulder and I appreciate that. But I've also worked with people at Harvard where my first job that I got coming out of college was data entry. So I was making $30,000 a year. I was only like 22 years old or so. And I saw a guy that was doing the same exact work I was doing, data entry, 30 years old, went to Harvard and had no energy. No, no. I think he thought life was done after he went to Harvard. And I'm just like, yeah, it has nothing to do with the school that you go to. It really has. It really just comes down to how hard you continue to push and how hard you're willing to push.
Yeah. And Stanford and Harvard produce great people, especially the ones who are willing to grind it out. And I've seen a lot of amazing entrepreneurs come from there. There's, there has to be tons of amazing workers. I hear more about the entrepreneurs, of course, because a lot of them have made billions of dollars. And we're not talking about personally, but you know, you just go on the Forbes list. A lot of those people went to Stanford and Harvard, at least in tech. But when you look at employees, I find that you get people who are just willing to grind it out after they graduated from like the Arizona State University is like, all right, I got to get my crap together. I got to get my life and just push hard. And a lot of the people that I've interviewed from, let's say Stanford are just like, I did so well and I got into this school. You know, my life should be easier, but that's not reality. They just believe in that.
It's because we've been brainwashed as kids. I don't know about you, but for me, it was always like, oh, go to Stanford, go to UCLA at the very least. So, it was very much a brand thing growing up Chinese, right? Asian. And so, but you realize none of that matters at the end of the day. What matters is how much you contribute to the world. And if you want to contribute more, that means you have to continue to grow. So—
