Google co-founder Sergey Brin says the tech giant is increasingly hiring people without bachelor’s degrees, reflecting a broader shift toward a skills-based economy. 

Brin told Stanford University engineering students recently that Google’s hiring has de-emphasized elite academic pedigrees. Although the company still employs many “academic stars,” he said that some employees are self-taught or come from nontraditional backgrounds. 

“Inasmuch as we’ve hired a lot of academic stars, we’ve hired tons of people who don’t have bachelor’s degrees,” Brin said. “They just figure things out on their own in some weird corner.”

Data backs up this cultural shift. According to the Burning Glass Institute, a nonprofit research organization, the share of job listings at Google requiring a college degree fell from 93% in 2017 to 77% in 2022. Other tech giants, such as Microsoft, Apple and Cisco, have also reduced their degree requirements recently. They are moving towards evaluating demonstrable skills rather than educational qualifications. 

Brin’s own academic choices were driven by interest rather than credentials. “I chose computer science because I had a passion for it,” Brin said. “It was kind of a no-brainer for me. I guess you could say I was also lucky because I was also in such a transformative field.”

Brin was a Ph.D. student in computer science at Stanford University when he met Larry Page and began developing Google. He received a master’s degree in 1995, but went on leave from his doctorate program to work on Google. 

Brin warned Stanford students against making academic choices solely based on fears that AI will replace certain kinds of work. For example, he cautioned against switching to comparative literature as a major just because AI is getting better at coding. “The AI is probably even better at comparative literature, just to be perfectly honest anyway,” he said. 

Leaders in finance and technology echo Brin’s skepticism about overrelying on credentials. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said in 2024 that elite schooling and high grades do not automatically translate into performance. He stressed that many people’s real abilities are invisible on a resume.

Similarly, Palantir CEO Alex Karp said during an earnings call last year that it didn’t matter if an employee didn’t go to school, went to a school that wasn’t great or went to Harvard. ”Once you come to Palantir, you’re a Palantirian. No one cares about the other stuff,” he said. 

For Brin, the prevalence of skills-based hiring raises questions about the purpose of higher education itself. “I just would rethink what it means to have a university,” he told Stanford students. 

Sign up for the Entrepreneur Daily newsletter to get the news and resources you need to know today to help you run your business better. Get it in your inbox.