‘Godmother of AI’ says degrees are less important in hiring than ‘how quickly can you superpower yourself’ with new tools

Founders and AI startups in Silicon Valley are valuing degrees less and are seeking out candidates who can work quickly, adapt and build AI models.

Fei-Fei Li, a Stanford professor and CEO of the AI startup World Labs, is known as the “Godmother of AI” for her work building a large-scale database of labeled images, which changed the way computers comprehend digital images and videos.

Li, also the founding co-director of Stanford’s Human-Centered AI Institute, said she values candidates’ experience and relationship with AI tools more than their educational background.

“When we interview a software engineer, I personally feel the degree they have matters less to us now,” Li said of the talent search process for her AI startup in an interview on The Tim Ferriss Show this week.

“Now, it’s