As you mentioned in an email, I answered your question later in the podcast, but to make it a bit more concrete:

No, the Russian/Chinese/Indian education systems are much, MUCH more focused. If you do a 5-year degree in mathematics at a Russian university, for instance, you get a Master’s degree in maths out of it at the end, and you spend basically all 5 years doing very, very serious maths. One of my best friends did just that, and she is technically MORE highly qualified in mathematics than I am, since she had to write a dissertation in the subject – I never had to do that, even though I have a Master’s in financial mathematics.

The same is true for students at Indian universities – their programs can run for up to 5 years of education, and you come out of it with a specialised degree. Now, as I understand it, the first two years of that degree program involves a core curriculum that everyone at an IIT takes at the same time – and it ALL involves the same stuff, regardless of whether you want to do Physics, Mathematics, or Engineering, you still study the same foundational materials, and all of it is hard science and maths.

Only if you study a pure humanities program, does the curriculum involve purely humanities subjects. My understanding is that, at the elite level, the Indian system of education is still heavily influenced by the old Soviet system – the Soviets literally provided the textbooks for many of the original IITs and funded the construction of at least one of them. So you get much more focus from day one on your chosen field of specialisation.

In their technical degrees, though, the Russians and Indians do not mess around. There is none of this nonsense that you have in the USA, where you can major in Maths or Physics and minor in something stupid like English or Psychology or Spanish.

I do have a question about higher education in the Usa compared to other systems. I wonder if the disparity of intellectual capabilities at the top is worse then the indicates.

In a US university, a spot solid quarter of an undergraduate program is humanities studies, eg something around communications, arts, music, light weight history, philosophy introduction, ect.
If your degree is a soft skills / non technical program, you can increase that to three quarters of the program.

At the graduate level it’s more focused.

Do the Russian/Chinese/Indian university systems these leaders come from also have this level of humanities in their technical degrees?