Y combinator ceo: “the founder of tomorrow will be different…might be an English major”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Guess what proud parent of STEM kid so fixated on STEM they didn't add that kid was creative and imaginative to come up with a promising startup idea.

Most of the tech startups are started by STEM majors.

I think liberal arts majors think that STEM majors aren't creative. Who do you think created the internet, all those social media platforms, games, etc...

Also, the Screen Writers Guild are afraid that AI will take their jobs. They see the writing on the wall (pun intended).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are liberal arts majors so sure that they will be successful in the AI era while STEM majors would fail miserably?

Given that STEM majors have to take approximately one-year worth of liberal arts classes to meet gen ed requirements, what are those three-year worth of classes that liberal arts majors take, that STEM majors don't, that turn liberal arts majors into these super critical thinkers who would complement AI while STEM majors, due to not having taken those classes, all turn into useless garbage? What is the secret sauce?

The bright 4.0 GPA 1570 SAT kid who chooses to major in liberal arts would become a critical thinker with strong communication skills plus ethical judgment, making them ideal in the world of AI. But if the *same* bright kid chooses to major in STEM, four years later all their critical thinking cells would die? They wouldn't be able to communicate effectively nor make ethical judgement? More absurdly, the dim/lazy 3.2 GPA 1180 kid, because of majoring in liberal arts, would all of a sudden outperform that bright 4.0 GPA 1570 STEM kid?

Are we giving liberal arts too much credit? Giving universities too much credit in how they could shape students? Giving innate intelligence too little credit (it doesn't matter what a smart kid majors in, the cream will rise to the top)?

Well put. Yes, the humanities people are trying hard to vindicate and justify their choices.

The people who came up with the internet, social media, and even AI are mostly STEM majors, not liberal arts majors.

They are just drawing the wrong conclusions.

In this specific example, the Y Combinator guy is saying that an English major that becomes an expert on using AI may become the founder of tomorrow.

The problem is literally 99% of English majors will profess their hatred of AI, and have zero interest in becoming an expert with Claude Code...while 50% of most smart CS kids are figuring out how to master Claude Code and other similar AI tools.

So, it's true you no longer have to know how to code at a fundamental level...but you do have to know some code and you do have to become an expert in using these tools. Most humanities majors have zero interest in doing either, which is why they picked a humanities major from the start.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Guess what proud parent of STEM kid so fixated on STEM they didn't add that kid was creative and imaginative to come up with a promising startup idea.

Humanities majors are NOT creative at all! Just because they’re too dumb for STEM and have to do humanities, doesn’t make them creative. It’s actually the exact opposite because creativity is driven by intelligence which they lack relative to the STEM kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yet tech exec kids are also still majoring in CS.

This is not necessarily true. Look at private school college decision Instagram pages, the children of the wealthy major in humanities at a higher percentage than the general student body of elite colleges.

? ok, I didn't say "wealthy". Also, humanities majors are easier than STEM majors, and children of wealthy don't have to major in something more marketable. They can live off their inheritance.

Well you said tech execs not just tech employees - I agree in that children of engineers are more likely to be pushed towards STEM careers. But children of tech execs at large companies are not necessarily grinding in CS.