> He replied, somewhat evasively, that no, there wasn't really an sum large enough.

Which, of course, is his job. I wouldn't be surprised at all to find that he has an entirely separate point of view in private when being candid.

That said, my immediate reaction to reading the first sentence of the GP comment was to think of that same Revisionist History episode. I'm excited that the new season is beginning soon. I will temper that with a caveat that I think Malcom does push his agenda and narrative fairly hard in those podcasts, but that does make for a really compelling story. If you can separate the facts from the portions it feels like he's omitting, you'll likely get more out of the podcasts, but I find the exposure to new ideas particularly fun and useful. I especially liked the Moral Licensing episode, which I only listened to for the first time a few months ago. It's particularly fun to listen to that one and realize that his specifics were all wrong, but the generalities and basics still match perfectly with the new Political reality that was only 6-12 months int the future from that recording (regardless of whether you believe in the premise).

I'm being particularly vague on purpose here, because I truly believe that episode was at least twice as as entertaining and memorable because of that situation, and I don't want to ruin it for anyone. That episode was so good, it's probably worth a re-listen now if you listened to them as they were released.

> asks the president of Stanford

Interesting tidbit: the president of Stanford at the time was John Hennessy. Take any modern CPU, and you'll probably find that much of its internal architecture is built on work by Hennessy and his group at Stanford. He is arguably the greatest computer architect of all time.

He's definitely a powerhouse, but I think Patterson is a stronger contender for that title.

They would definitely both be among the very top candidates to receive such a title.

Any time someone brings up Stanford, I want to scream patent troll. If you sell to a patent troll, you are a patent troll.

http://news.stanford.edu/2015/02/23/haber-patent-trolls-0223...

Shame on you, Stanford! What a sorry college.

Fortunately they collaborated and wrote a book on the subject!

*THE book

:)

I don't have much to add to this beyond another strong recommendation that you listen to that 3-part series; it's the strongest work he's ever done in any medium.

I just remember 2 episodes. While it was entertaining, one episode lacked any intellectual rigor at all. It seems like Gladwell can't understand the counterarguments at all and chooses to cut out most of them with out realizing.

One obvious thing he misses is the moral hazard of rewarding poor performing schools. Also, the real question is why donate to universities at all? There is no real reason why universities can't support teaching purely on tuition. University can easily charge on a sliding scale based on need and SAT scores. If they want more kids to go to college, they can give to scholarships directly. Giving to university directly just promotes spending them on outspending each other on other axis for attention...

The "obvious" point you're making in your second graf is one Gladwell agrees with.

Is the second reason one he actually agrees with? Does he consider the second order effects? He thinks giving more to poor schools would be a "good" thing. All it would do is cause more schools to try to fight for prestige and donations. We have 15ish schools were their number one goal is to find ways to get donations. What would happen if 150ish school expected to be able to get huge sums of money as donations? Many would change their focus away from education and what students what to donors. I think it likely to increase tuition and decrease enrollment. Top 15 schools need to be selective to be the best. If the 100th best school want to look like it getting better it needs to become much more selective.