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

lastmansurfing
Dec 14, 2025
1 min read

Fei-Fei Li, a Stanford professor and CEO of 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 codirector 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.