Socialism & Computer Science in UC Berkeley

as it could be seen by Steven Wozniak about 30 years ago:

    My computer science courses were interesting, but I have to
    criticize them a little because they taught only specific problems
    with specific solutions. You spent your time memorizing standard
    problems and solutions and then tried to recognize variations of
    them in the tests. You weren’t supposed to explore new avenues or
    try things that nobody else was doing. You were only supposed to
    learn the proper answer. They thought that you could be trained to
    know all the problems and the standard solutions. Once you learned
    them all, you could solve them.

    My economics course was interesting also. We had a socialist TA
    [teaching assistant] who taught us that companies made money by
    cheating the consumer. All the kids in the class thought that
    companies would make a lot of profit if they could figure out a way
    to cut the costs of a product down, to make it cheap and screw the
    consumer.

    It was wrong because they weren’t really teaching you to solve problems – they taught you to identify to cut the costs of a product down, to make it cheap and screw the consumer.

    I contrast that with the way we did things at Apple. Every product
    design decision was based on what consumers wanted, what would
    compete the best, what they would buy. We tried to do what
    customers wanted, in our best judgment, and give them high-quality
    products.

    So I would stand up in class and argue about what the TA was
    saying. After a while he started telling me to shut up. or that he
    would kick me out if I interrupted him again. Apple was the
    greatest business success in history, but I couldn’t tell him who I
    was.

Source: STEVE WOZNIAK INTERVIEW — BYTE MAGAZINE — DECEMBER 1984

Steve Wozniak: Tolerance for “Bad Behavior” is a Key Social Ingredient

states/cities should care about before investing in efforts to become the next Silicon Valley

    …Apple co-founder [ Steve Wozniak ] dissed Singapore for its lack of creative people because the city-state doesn’t tolerate bad behavior. “When you’re very structured almost like a religion… Look at structured societies like Singapore where bad behavior is not tolerated [and] you are extremely punished. Where are the creative people? Where are the great artists? Where are the great musicians? Where are the great singers? Where are the great writers? Where are the great athletes?” Wozniak said. “All the creative elements seem to disappear.”

    Asia cannot be the next Silicon Valley. By Eileen Yu on ZDNet