Barry Weiss

He was sort of commenting on our gestalt. And here's what he said. Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long, at least since the 90s and likely longer. That doesn't start in college. It starts young. Here's where we could psychoanalyze him.

A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math Olympiad champ or the jock over the valedictorian will not produce the best engineers. A culture that venerates Cory from Boy Meets World or Zack and Slater over Screech and Saved by the Bell, I promise I'm almost done, will not produce the best engineers. Now, this got a ton of backlash.

A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math Olympiad champ or the jock over the valedictorian will not produce the best engineers. A culture that venerates Cory from Boy Meets World or Zack and Slater over Screech and Saved by the Bell, I promise I'm almost done, will not produce the best engineers. Now, this got a ton of backlash.

A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math Olympiad champ or the jock over the valedictorian will not produce the best engineers. A culture that venerates Cory from Boy Meets World or Zack and Slater over Screech and Saved by the Bell, I promise I'm almost done, will not produce the best engineers. Now, this got a ton of backlash.

Your reputation has been built in part on knowing excellence, on raising excellent children, on helping advise other people to do the same. So I guess first question there is, do you agree with him that American culture venerates mediocrity over excellence?

Your reputation has been built in part on knowing excellence, on raising excellent children, on helping advise other people to do the same. So I guess first question there is, do you agree with him that American culture venerates mediocrity over excellence?

Your reputation has been built in part on knowing excellence, on raising excellent children, on helping advise other people to do the same. So I guess first question there is, do you agree with him that American culture venerates mediocrity over excellence?

I just want to maybe deepen it a little bit more. Maybe he didn't phrase it properly, but the numbers are clear. Immigrants and their children are statistically more likely to get college degrees than other Americans. They're more than twice as likely to start a new business. They are, like person for person, some of the most successful people in American life.

I just want to maybe deepen it a little bit more. Maybe he didn't phrase it properly, but the numbers are clear. Immigrants and their children are statistically more likely to get college degrees than other Americans. They're more than twice as likely to start a new business. They are, like person for person, some of the most successful people in American life.

I just want to maybe deepen it a little bit more. Maybe he didn't phrase it properly, but the numbers are clear. Immigrants and their children are statistically more likely to get college degrees than other Americans. They're more than twice as likely to start a new business. They are, like person for person, some of the most successful people in American life.

It may have been reductive, but one thing that definitely happened was a unbelievable tidal wave of just racism and bigotry, especially against Indians and against a particular man who's going to be in the new administration, Sriram, but also against Vivek. And that was sort of woven in with a general anti-immigrant vibe shift. Like, is that part of the vibe shift that's bad?

It may have been reductive, but one thing that definitely happened was a unbelievable tidal wave of just racism and bigotry, especially against Indians and against a particular man who's going to be in the new administration, Sriram, but also against Vivek. And that was sort of woven in with a general anti-immigrant vibe shift. Like, is that part of the vibe shift that's bad?

It may have been reductive, but one thing that definitely happened was a unbelievable tidal wave of just racism and bigotry, especially against Indians and against a particular man who's going to be in the new administration, Sriram, but also against Vivek. And that was sort of woven in with a general anti-immigrant vibe shift. Like, is that part of the vibe shift that's bad?

Like, how do you contend with that? How are you thinking about that?

Like, how do you contend with that? How are you thinking about that?

Like, how do you contend with that? How are you thinking about that?

Well, maybe to say it back to you, and I want to make sure I'm understanding you correctly, the danger of the sort of identity politics that we have been living in for the past decade, especially in elite and pedigreed spaces, the danger of it wasn't just what you saw on the surface.

Well, maybe to say it back to you, and I want to make sure I'm understanding you correctly, the danger of the sort of identity politics that we have been living in for the past decade, especially in elite and pedigreed spaces, the danger of it wasn't just what you saw on the surface.

Well, maybe to say it back to you, and I want to make sure I'm understanding you correctly, the danger of the sort of identity politics that we have been living in for the past decade, especially in elite and pedigreed spaces, the danger of it wasn't just what you saw on the surface.

The danger was the fact that telling people, maybe especially young children in some of these schools, that their whiteness was somehow the most important thing about them was inevitably going to lead to a kind of white identitarian backlash. And maybe the reason you feel like you haven't been vindicated or aren't winning is you don't know where that's going to wind up.