Degrees Are Not the Civil Service Exam, They Are Just the Stepping Stone

Students have a certain reverence for academic credentials, while investors tend to view problems in a practical, grounded way.

A Tsinghua degree is a better "key" than one from a second-tier university because it opens different doors. If both could open the same door, there’d be no difference. The same logic applies to a master's degree versus a second-tier degree — the advantage of one over the other only matters if it unlocks different opportunities. If they’re interchangeable, they’re effectively identical.

Different tracks, different doors, different magnitude — the same effort yields different returns.