Here are some of my own personal opinions on hiring / schools / etc.
Which school you graduated from and rank is rarely even discussed when hiring coders with a few years experience. After 2 years no one will ask you where you graduated in your class. After 8 years no one will care where you went to school, other than possibly as a plus. It's not a decision maker at that point. What the applicant did between graduation and applying to the job is really what matters. This seems to be different for other areas of study (and graduate degrees of course). But this is my experience with coders (bachelor degree holding computer scientist and the like). Both hiring and being one.
An individual's family situation, both financial and otherwise, can effect their decisions on schools. Some oft overlooked hackers went to state or local colleges for reasons outside of their control. An example - I knew someone in high school that got into MIT and Northwestern (Chicago area). They ended up cranking through the local college (Northern Illinois University) in 3 years instead. His family had a business and he had to be there to run it. After he finally found someone to manage the family business he ended up being successful and promoted up the chain in a huge company. There are plenty of opportunities outside of the norm. But the burden is on the person applying to show that they are worth investigating further.
[EDIT: Syntax]
Regarding college: I know Sachin sold computers and had a hell of a time dealing with Paypal as a fledgling entrepreneur and Garry...umm Garry was in chess club? I don't know - college discussions just didn't come up much.
The Posterous guys certainly don't "act" (and by act I mean the generalizations spelled out in these comments) like they went to one of those schools, let alone "elitist". Besides, most of the time when we hung out, they were more interested in talking about ideas or learning about my boring Ohio background.
So if you're hesitant to apply because of this situation, don't be. And if you do not want to take my word for it, I'd be more than happy to email you a list of references of my friends & family that have dealt with Garry and/or Sachin including my parents and a girl friend in Chicago that had problems setting up her Posterous. Or just ask Livingston - she loooves Garry.
As always dan at the domain for ticketstumbler.
Here was our thinking: the true hacker badasses out there will see that and not really give a crap. They know they're good, and will just glide over that line.
What we really mean is: we want people who are smart and amazing.
I can show chat transcripts with dcurtis if you care to follow up with me directly (we really did discuss whether that line should stay or go). [email protected]
But the point is: Mea culpa, we posted it at 2 AM and it was a mistake to put this down as a "requirement". It's absolutely a 'plus'.