15 ms·

Students: You Are Probably Not Mark Zuckerberg, So Stay In School

137 points by cwan 16y ago

atomical 16y ago
Most students probably don't think that they are the next Mark Zuckerberg but some are probably thinking about the merits of taking a chance and learning something versus taking a bunch of meaningless courses or writing a paper that will never see the light of day.
danielnicollet 16y ago
I agree with that call for students thinking twice before dropping out for a startup. If everyone is leaving school to start companies, just go the other direction. This is just a classical case of market psychology. You never want to enter the tail-end of a big wave of risk-taking like this. Education is one of the lowest risk, highest return investment you'll ever make.
dalewindon 16y ago
I read this and all I can say is the education system is not creating entrepreneurs. I belive an entrepreneur is a person who has clear goals and sheer determination. Persistance is the key to success, you dont have to go to harvard to become wealthy... you just need to know what you want and the world will bend around you!... Keep networking and you can allways find people who can help make your dream into a reality!
- palish 16y ago
  It's interesting that HN is developing an anti-drop-out-of-school mentality. It's been fun to watch it manifest itself. People probably do it through a combination of "I don't want to be partially responsible for screwing with a kid's life" and "if they get discouraged from starting a startup, they weren't meant to anyway". That said, it's kind of silly that your insightful (and true) comment is being set upon by those types of people.
grandalf 16y ago
Sometimes it takes courage to quit school, sometimes it takes courage to stick with it. Instead of outright quitting I'd recommend using the resources (discounted housing, compute resources, etc.) with a light course load while bootstrapping.
alain94040 16y ago
It's really so much simpler... they are both right. While in college, start a startup! It's the optimal time of your life where taking such a risk is really no risk at all. If your idea takes-off, great, figure out what to do then. For everyone else, finish your degree and try again soon (you'll be that much more experienced).
- faramarz 16y ago
  I did this and I can contribute most of my hair loss for dealing with clients while in school. At some points I could not distinguish what were my priorities and you need a strong support system around you to keep you a float, mentally. It's an exhausting and distracting proposition, so don't take it lightly or do. Whichever works best.
  - bricestacey 16y ago
    I am doing this and I agree. I am taking 4 classes, a 40 hour/wk job, and am working on a startup that is not yet launched. It is exhausting and I never know what deserves the most attention in my life. To make matters worse I also have a girlfriend. It's a physical, emotional, and psychological whirlwind to put it lightly. I definitely do not suggest anyone attempt what I'm doing, but if you can more power to you. If possible, I'd have never gotten a job. I don't make a lot of money, but it's hard to give it up. I think what's most important about starting a startup in school is that you probably do not make a lot of money and you're less likely to compromise where most would because of finances.
- dasil003 16y ago
  I like your answer, though I was actually gonna say the opposite. They're both wrong! First of all this aim high stuff is nonsense. Facebook did not start with the goal of toppling MySpace. Microsoft did not start with the goal of running on 95% of machines. Twitter did not start with the thought of becoming a billion dollar company. These companies get their through consistent cycles of ambition and execution. There's nothing particular about a "lifestyle" business other than that the ambition has waned. There's literally no business that exists that can not have ambitions and grow into a major corporation through a series of growth cycles. Likewise, there's no business plan for a billion dollar company that someone can draw up from day 1 and have it survive the market on its way to that size. As for education, that's the qualification for knowing how to run a business? There's nothing about growing a business from nothing to 9 figures that a few years in the trenches of silicon valley won't teach you better than education. Sure higher ed can teach you a lot, and you can make a lot of connections, but there's nothing special about it, and in fact it doesn't really have the same culture that makes successful startups possible. My advice to anybody in college with a project as successful as Facebook was at the time Zuckerberg dropped out is, "yes, you should drop out too. You won't be the next Zuckerberg (that ship has sailed), but you'll likely meet with some success in the valley, and certainly you'll learn more about running a real business than you were going to finishing out school."
palish 16y ago
Here is the problem with Arrington’s logic: students may come up with great ideas and start a company, but they aren’t going to be able make it big unless they have the educational foundation. Oh really?
faramarz 16y ago
There still is a stigma for putting university on hold or dropping out. Trust me there is. All you guys (Arrington included) in the valley are in a bubble, which is fine, because it works there but the rest of society doesn't feel the same (good or bad). Anywhere else, your family, your friends, your colleagues, they will not take you seriously until you finish your degree. The stigma will only die when every single college dropout has found success. So.. let's not egg people on to quit school because social pressures aren't there anymore, that's not true. Secondly, I don't thinking you have to quit completely. I am a HUGE supporter of taking a year or two off after high-school to explore the world, read books, grow up and develop a character before pursuing post-secondary education. This is what I did and I can tell you every word that came out of my professors mouth made sense to me, and if it didn't I would challenge him and raise my voice. I understood the subjects better. I felt compelled to challenge myself and take on TA roles. If I had gone to university straight out of high-school, I don't think I would have benefited the same way. This expectation that you have to choose a college in your senior year, getting accepted, doing four years and moving on to a job has made student numb. not dumb, but numb to the fact that they're merely a tiny spec in an automated process. No one really grasps the subject as long as they memorize enough to pass the course, and eventually get handed a piece of paper which they can get a job with. Break out of this cycle and start learning. You will then see education as a tool that will broaden your horizon and open a lot more opportunities.
- btmorex 16y ago
  Disagree completely. I only have about 50 college credits and have no plans to finish. I've also lived pretty much all over the United States and there really isn't much of a stigma... certainly not from my friends and family. Large companies and universities might have to make special arrangements for you to be on the right "career track", but that's about it (and they will do that, I have personal experience with a University inventing a new position for me).
  - faramarz 16y ago
    Then IMO you're in the small percentage of people who are motivated enough, talented enough and have the discipline to go and get what they want. Most people need to be taught that.
amichail 16y ago
One problem with college is that you start to develop interests that are completely out of touch with what users want. The more educated you are, the less practical your startup ideas.
- ryanhuff 16y ago
  I would agree if your users are not college educated. Otherwise, I don't see it. Anyhow, life is more than just catering to user "wants". Yes, college is mostly seen as a gateway to a profession, but you can get much more than job skills out of the experience.
- piguy314 16y ago
  Depends on market segment. If you are trying to create a product for people in "fly-over country" then sure being more educated may prevent you from seeing things from their point of view, Walmart came from Arkansans after all... But most of the target audience for tech startups is in the first third of technology adoption curve which is dominated by educated and/or affluent and/or intelligent people.
treblig 16y ago
This is an excellent post, and a very timely one with The Social Network coming out. The film certainly glamorizes startup life, and makes it seem like you won't fail. I released my iPhone app this Summer (SeizeTheDay, http://seizethedayapp.com http://seizethedayapp.com). I'm in school at Ohio State for my senior year. We got featured on the App Store, and received app of the week from Time and CNET. This has put us around 100k downloads in the first couple of months. While in SF this Summer, I received a lot of advice to drop out and blow it up. I disagree significantly. College is fun, and the idea is that it's something I can do on the side while I'm in school. I'm currently making somewhere between beer money and a salary from iAds (will probably post some data on this at some point when we have more data available). I figure if I can grow revenue to about 4x what we're currently doing, I can afford to dive in full time. This gives me 9 months of school to keep working on the side, and see if it's realistic when I graduate. We put about $800 of investment into it, and our only recurring cost is Apple's dev license ($100/year). While not every startup can operate this way, I feel this is the way to do it. Our model lends itself pretty well to tackling a small problem and growing slowly.
- jcnnghm 16y ago
  I've been using your app for the last couple of weeks. I think it's the best tasks app on the iPhone at this point, really well thought out and easy to use. Any plans to offer an in-app upgrade to disable ads?
  - treblig 16y ago
    Coming next week :)
rumpelstiltskin 16y ago
There's just 2 problems with Vivek's position - a) Cost - In today's economic climate, I simply cannot justify an education that, on avg, costs over $100K. Especially when student loans are involved. b) Time - 4 yrs is an unnecessarily long amount of time for a bachelors degree, not to mention another 1-2 yrs for a masters. The opportunity cost of this time only compounds the first problem. Edit: Sorry, I should have been more clear. In terms of cost, I meant that there's an institutional problem within the American education system that allows for such skyhigh tuition rates. The same reasoning applies to time. Sure, students can ramp up their classes and finish a 4 yr degree in 3 yrs, but why should they have to? Why not make it 2-3 yrs to begin with? This can easily be done by making non-relevant classes optional instead of core for a given major (for example, I had to take a course in art as part of my biology major).
- mgkimsal 16y ago
  So... get it done in 3. I know many people who did, and still managed to work their way through school without loans or with minimal loans. 3 years at NC State would cost you about $50k. Save up beforehand, work during school - it's doable. Hard, but doable. Looking at Oakland (Michigan), where I went, it's now about $10k/year - 3 years accelerated would be under $40k FWICT. Yes, that's not peanuts, but it's not the end of the world. Scholarships/grants/working during school - it's all doable. I'm still shocked to find people getting in to 6 figure debt for college degrees. I just don't see the payback in most cases, and likely neither will those students. :/
- mikeryan 16y ago
  I can kind of see the cost point - though most would argue that the lifetime earnings of someone with a college degree far outweigh a $100K investment. But the time thing kind of bugs me. As driven as HN is this may be a minority position but I really don't believe you should be working (in a 9-5 career style job) between 18-24. I really don't care so much abou t college, but have fun, go out, date guys and girls, travel, there are so many things you should be doing at that age then starting a business and you'll end up better for it. I didn't start my career until my late 20s and I don't regret that at all.
dzlobin 16y ago
That chart is stupidly loaded. How about the figures for startups with founders that didn't graduate from the Ivy League?
deleted 16y ago
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yewweitan 16y ago
Oh, how much different life would be if I were in the US. I'm a University Student in Australia, and 1 year in Stanford is literally equivalent to 4 years in Melbourne University (say $40,000/year for stanford vs the $5,000/year I pay now). Not to mention that my education is on an interest-free government loan. I can see why it's so appealing for a University student to want to drop out solely because of the cost. We all have to admit that University can't possibly cover all bases and teach one how to build a business and product. We also have to admit that University provides some very valuable connections, knowledge and perspectives for those who are there. Hence, to me, it's a question of relative value. That aside, it then again depends on the type of career path you want to take down the road. If you're in the software world, I guess you can say that building a software product is something that you can do without University. Or put slightly different, University won't make you a better programmer. Merit in our world is won by building the better hack. However, I've got friends in accounting and finance who have leveraged the crap out of the exposure opportunities at University. I'm sure many of them will land high-paying jobs in the future. Bottom line is to know your system and thrive. I sorta dislike the way Vivek tries to push statistics of startup founders as a justification for a college education. Statistics show the current state of affairs, but they don't necessarily link to the point that he is trying to make. Basically, what he says is that one should learn the ropes by working for some large companies, or even at a startup. The assumption there is that you need a degree to work at a company to gain experience, which again, varies by field (accountants better have a degree, coders at a startup, maybe not). That said, I agree with his evaluations on the merits of a college education. It would also be stupid to admit that a college degree doesn't confer a certain level of credibility; I'm sure that those with a degree will find it easier to get their foot in the door at large companies. After all of that, the questions I still think needs to be answered first and foremost is: What does it cost? Am I ready to bear that cost?
myoung8 16y ago
He doesn't seem to realize that you can learn all those things they teach you in business school (finance, marketing, corporate law) as you go if you're a real entrepreneur. Sure, you might make a few mistakes early on, but there's no better way to learn.
nedwin 16y ago
I went back to finish by degree after a few years in the work force and while it has been tough it's definitely been rewarding. It certainly hasn't stopped me pursuing the startup life and over the last three years I've worked on a bunch of startup projects with varying degrees of success. Being a university student meant that I could open doors not normally open to me, getting access to mentors and market data that I wouldn't have if I was out in the open. It also meant that while I was switching between startups I could get away without being seen as flaky as I was still "just" a university student. I'm now in a profitable startup that is growing incredibly fast but still studying, hoping to graduate in the middle of next year. People around me have said "why finish? surely you've proved you don't need university by now?" but from where I'm standing I have to finish. I used to say "if I get to x revenue or if y deal happens then I'll drop out". But having hit a couple of those milestones I'm still there - I need to prove to myself that I can finish this.
kyro 16y ago
It's funny, because even people like Zuckerberg eventually had to pull in experts with extensive educational backgrounds to help in developing the company. And if you look at any billion dollar company, those with degrees have played and continue to play a critical role in said company's growth and success. While I do agree that with a field like computer science, real world experience rather than educational background may be far more valuable (read: Diaspora), I hope this mentality is limited to those within that demographic. This certainly does not apply to people pursuing medicine, law, finance, etc. Some of the comments go so far as to claim that higher education is this era's biggest scam, which is an extremely ignorant view. I attend medical school currently, and am certain that the value I gain from the plethora of resources available, from discussing cases with professors to sticking my hands in a cadaver, is significantly more than that I'd get out of watching a few videos online, or taking some dissection tutorial. And these resources aren't free.
- nostrademons 16y ago
  "Some of the comments go so far as to claim that higher education is this era's biggest scam, which is an extremely ignorant view." There is a gigantic difference between medical school and University of Phoenix.
  - deleted 16y ago
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  - lotusleaf1987 16y ago
    I don't think anyone is arguing (on HN at least) that U of P is at all a legitimate education, but surely you can appreciate that even someone who gets a degree from a state school would develop some critical thinking skills, regardless of their major. Going to college just teaches you how to learn and illustrates that you can. Some majors are definitely more valuable/productive than others, but I still think all of them are beneficial. Of course, you need to way the cost vs. benefit ratio on an individual basis because it's probably not useful to take out $130,000 in debt for say a Sociology degree.
  - lzw 16y ago
bretthellman 16y ago
Don't beat people down. You only live once.
vaksel 16y ago
I've said it time and time again...college is not that tasking...at most you'll spend 20-25 hours a week on it. With half of that being bullshit classes you are taking as a requirement. Which gives you a ton of time to work on your startup.
rblion 16y ago
Not everyone is meant to learn within four walls and from dispassionate, jaded professors. In my view, the best way to learn about life and how to survive using your skills and talents is 'in the wild' or by autodidacticism aka 'learning by experimentation by day and reading classics by night'. Just be prepared for a lot of initial rejection and to have enough conviction to walk to Mordor in your bare feet. It will take a lot more effort but it will make you much greater in the end. I am 20. I dropped out a semester before I was to transfer to Georgia Tech. I dropped out because I know the surest path to greatness is autodidacticism. It's the way da Vinci, Lincoln, Einstein, and Jobs/Wozniack did it. Being a bit more rebellious and more curious than most, it's the only method of learning that I have ever excelled with anyways. I taught myself to read and write at 3 watching Disney movies with captions. I have been reading a book a week since 5th grade. My dad got me into web design and development while I was in middle school. By the end of high school, I was already feeling jaded with our Industrial Age school system and decided to learn of the Cosmos by direct experience... HOW I GOT A WORLD CLASS EDUCATION FOR FREE: 1. ) I worked for my older brother's bootstrapped startup (Myriann.com). I watched him build websites from scratch, close big deals while still in college, and manage a team of designers and developers from all over the world. He is profitable and on pace to retire within a few years (if he wanted). 2.) I took advantage of iTunes U, TED, my public library, and free lectures from MIT, Stanford, and Harvard. I read world classics, epic biographies, and all branches of science. I discovered myself by going deeper into all subjects to the root of where each came from and why each exists. I now have a deep passion to be an artist and a scientist for the rest of my life. I will remain a student the rest of my life and apply everything I learn to my work... 3.) MY WORK: I am building a startup by trial and error. I have attempted to launch a startup 7 times since I was 15. All of them have had little success or went up in flames. I learned from each attempt and kept asking, thinking, and creating. I am now on attempt #8 and will try to enter YC this fall. I have never applied before. DON'T LET YOUR VOICE BE DROWNED BY DOGMA!!!!!!
ojbyrne 16y ago
Even if you look at Zuckerberg, he hedged his bets quite a bit. He went to Harvard, started facebook, then worked on it full time for a summer, and even when he decided he wasn't going to go back in the fall, it could easily have been just a year off.
alex1 16y ago
I think that saying something like "dropping out of college increases your chance of success in a startup, just look at the Forbes 'Richest People in America' list" is a huge fallacy. Let's face it, most college dropouts will not become billionaires. But, there are exceptions. I recently went through the Forbes billionaire list and picked out everyone that made their fortune through technology. I found that about ~35% had no Bachelor's degrees and ~55% had no Master's degrees. Then I looked at the top 7 on the list and saw that more than 50% did not have Bachelor's degrees. It is also interesting to note that billionaire college dropouts are worth $9bn on average, compared to billionaires with Ph.D.'s, worth an average of $3bn. Most college dropouts don't become billionaires. But, an overwhelming number of tech billionaires are college dropouts. Interesting... Why is there such a high percentage of tech billionaires that are college dropouts? My theory is that there are people that are born entrepreneurs and will become billionaires whichever path they take in life. Most of these people are very smart, and, as a result, end up going to Ivy Leagues. But, a time comes (usually around age 19 or sophomore year in college), when something just wakes up in them and they decide to drop out and take the plunge. These are the Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerbergs of the world. Dropping out of college does not increase your chances of success. If you look at statistics, it decreases your chances. It's just that the born entrepreneurs "wake up" right around age 19-20 (which happens to be right in the middle of college), and end up dropping out. Only if you are in this tiny group of born entrepreneurs would it make sense for you to drop out of college.
- atomical 16y ago
  This successful entrepreneur probably would have ended up somewhere else if he had been able to get a job with a criminal record. Sometimes life happens and people are forced to become entrepreneurs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Bannatyne http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Bannatyne
mlinsey 16y ago
An under-emphasized detail is what your college's policy is on leave-of-absences, or allowing dropouts to return. For me, dropping out to try my first startup and returning to school after it failed was literally filling out a single-sided form when I left and filling out a similar single-sided form when I wanted to return. If it's that easy at your college, the risk of dropping out is extremely small, so if you have an idea you are passionate about and the opportunity to execute on it, you may as well try. I'll bet somebody told Mark Zuckerberg that he was probably not Bill Gates, so he should probably stay in school.
annajohnson 16y ago
Is the question really: am I better off completing college, spending a few years with a big company (or a startup) and then starting my own company... or is it: what do I want to achieve - e.g. build my own company in the xyz industry - and what is the best way for me to achieve that? If you know that you want to start 'a' company but don't know exactly what kind of company or what industry, etc the question may then become: what would I like to learn about and what will enable me to learn about that? The answer may well be to go to / stay in college and then work for a company or two in order to develop business skills and work out what kind of business you'd like to build. On the other hand, if you know exactly what you want to start, and have the skills and resources to 'just do it', maybe you are better off dropping out of college. Personally, I am almost a textbook example of Vivek's advice precisely because I wasn't sure what kind of business I wanted to start back in my high school and university days. I will say this, though, even if you stay in college or work for another company, I recommend starting some kind of business on the side. Not only will you learn skills you won't learn at college or in a big company - and you may stumble on the business you really want to commit to - but it will also help off-set the socialization (i.e. to keep that nice, high paying job with benefits) that can arise in a big corporate environment and that may stop you from ever taking the entrepreneurial plunge.
bialecki 16y ago
The comments here are a wall of text.
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d_r 16y ago
The main point, really, is causation. Mark Zuckerberg (and Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, etc, etc) dropped out of school AFTER starting a successful business. Even Paul Graham quit his day job AFTER starting a successful business. On the other hand, dropping out of school, or even quitting your day job, do not guarantee success.
- alex1 16y ago
  I thought Bill Gates left school to start a company. He hadn't even started a company before dropping out.
  - d_r 16y ago
    Technically, it seems both are correct. (From http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/?tab=biography http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/?tab=biography) While at Harvard, Gates developed a version of the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer - the MITS Altair. In his junior year, Gates left Harvard to devote his energies to Microsoft, a company he had begun in 1975 with his childhood friend Paul Allen.
- bhiggins 16y ago
  Exactly right. To think otherwise is to have cargo-cult thinking.
devmonk 16y ago
IMO what's wrong with kids wanting to be entrepreneurs? He might not be the best role model, but so what? We need a culture that supports and admires startups and small business.
rblion 16y ago
Fix your course to a star, not a degree. Neg me, I don't care. Just think about how short life is and how capable any of us are when we really apply ourselves. Why do you need anyone's approval to change the world?
gfodor 16y ago
I've never read "Outliers", but apparently neither has Arrington.
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hungh3 16y ago
Dropping out of school or quite our day job should be, IMHO, the results of a deep "self-understanding". I would advocate that one should first try to know the answer to what do I live this life for?. Why become an entrepreneur when you are meant to be a doctor? And why become a doctor when you are meant to be an entrepreneur? Look inside...
anondropout 16y ago
(long time user, anon for obvious reasons) I say you should drop out for a sufficiently interesting project. Even if it doesn't work out, by the time you're done you'll have enough experience to be far ahead of your peers. Personally, I dropped out of a top-tier school to found a startup (we closed our Series A ~3 weeks after I decided not to sign up for classes. Scariest 3 weeks of my life ;-)). After I left the startup, I was worried about my options w/o a degree - but it's really not a problem. Within 2 weeks of leaving I had 6-figure offers in NYC, Chicago, and SF. I'm now 24 yrs old, making ~$200K/year, doing work I really enjoy, and still no degree. The important thing is to prove you can do stuff. And the best proof of that is actually having done stuff.
siddhant 16y ago
This is (IMHO) very opposite to what this article says - http://www.stanford.edu/~pgbovine/startup.htm http://www.stanford.edu/~pgbovine/startup.htm Vivek talks about gathering experience before you start/join a startup (I think he mostly talks about starting a startup, rather than working for one), while Philip talks about why you should work for a startup right after your undergrad.
ndl 16y ago
"To build a business, you need to understand subjects like finance, marketing, intellectual property and corporate law." Many colleges, especially small ones, have absolutely nothing in these subjects. As for the ones that do, many successful founders and MBA holders tell me to be suspicious of said programs' ability to prepare one for actual entrepreneurship (as opposed to writing academic papers about entrepreneurship). I personally did finish college (this year), majoring in physics with minors in math and computer science. I attended a small liberal arts college with no practical business classes, of which I took 3 by hacking around the system. The physics major taught me how to get projects done, work efficiently and endure recurring high-stress situations. The math minor taught me that I suffocate in a room with too many mathematicians. The CS minor was really a collection of "X cool research area has Y," which is occasionally relevant. I definitely learned in a college, though I've yet to reach a conclusion on whether it was "worthwhile." I wish I'd taken more theatre and had more fun. I'm much more weary of grad school. As far as I can tell, college is more about exploring and learning general life lessons, while grad school buys you specialization. Specialization has power; most tech companies recognize this and hire PhDs as soon as they can afford to. But I currently have every reason to think that great founders are better off as generalists. Specialists get pulled in to support specific areas. Furthermore, while I admire those who were born to do one thing and do it well, I'm not one of them. I have very little idea what I would study. I certainly don't intend to spend my life researching a narrow subfield of physics. Unlike in college, I couldn't spend the 1st 2 years of a PhD or masters program field hopping. Occasionally someone tempts me with an interdisciplinary program; maybe I'll try one of these someday. Part of the draw of entrepreneurship is how multifaceted it appears. I have every reason to believe that for recent college grads dreaming of startups, the best way to get experience is by trying it. That's exactly what I'm doing at the moment. I also tried to form a startup in college. That didn't go too well. Now I'm starting up full time.
rahooligan 16y ago
Whether or not a wannabe entrepreneur should quit school and swing for the fences really depends on his level of competency. Some folks like gates, jobs and zuckerberg are competent enough to pull it off. Some arent. But if you are serious about becoming a successful entrepreneur you have to assume that you can pull it off which means that you should quit school.
garrettgillas 16y ago
@vwadhwa "Does anyone think that Mike would have been able to build TechCrunch if he was a college dropout?" - I do. So would @petecashmore. http://twitter.com/garrettgillas/status/25568001071 http://twitter.com/garrettgillas/status/25568001071
jasonkester 16y ago
I graduated from high school in 1989, at the very apex of 80's butt-rock heavy metal. My school had probably 200 guys with ratted out long hair, most of whom owned a guitar and dreamed of being a rock star. Of that group, probably 50 played well enough to do a creditable "Eruption" solo, and there were half a dozen guys who could get on stage at an assembly and keep the entire school entertained for 10 minutes. Lots of those guys, when asked what they planned to do after school would look you in the eye and tell you they were going to be a rock star. Lots of them tried, forgoing college to form bands and live the dream. At the time, there were so many stories of starving bands rising out of the LA club scene to land million dollar contracts that it seemed like all you had to do was show up. It was a lot like reading the tech press today about the Bay Area. Anybody care to guess how many of the guys from my school actually became rock stars? So here we are, 20 years later, seeing exactly the same pattern. We hear about the Twitters of the world, getting zillions of dollars for some trivial idea, and figure we can do that too. And just like the kid from my youth with the Judas Priest t-shirt, we ignore the overwhelming amount of evidence we see every day that there's pretty much zero chance of that happening. Here's an idea for a reality check. Do a quick search for "Ask HN: Rate my startup" here. Count(*), then Count(millionaires). That's what you're up against. If I were in school, I'd stick it out just to hedge my bet.
- luminarious 16y ago
  If you do the same thing everyone else is doing, you will fail. If you work really hard, you will perhaps fail to a lesser degree than everybody else. But the only way to win is to play your own game.
  - jasonkester 16y ago
    Play your own game, but stack the deck in your favor. It's no great feat to bootstrap a software business from within a company paying you $100k fresh out of school.
  - joe_the_user 16y ago
    If you play a typical game in normal fashion, you lose when losing is typical. If you play reasonably well in a game where modest success is typical, you will likely get modest success. Most people who play absolutely their own game lose too. Most big successes play a game where winning is typical and play it better than average. There's a "sweet spot" of self-expression and following the crowd but it's still fairly close to the crowd.
jteo 16y ago
Correlation does not imply causation.
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stackthat 16y ago
You need to decide why you need to get education for, Get educated because you love it, go ahead and do it. Get educated to get rich? Yes that's a way but also there are hundred other ways to get rich, so why bother? (Assuming you got some skills)
DanielBMarkham 16y ago
The harsh reality is that for every Zuckerberg, there are a thousand who drop out of college and fail. Many get discouraged after their failures and move to other professions which require less skill and education. So if this is the problem, the goal here should be to prevent folks from getting discouraged and doing things they'd rather not do, right? To keep on learning no matter what place they live in, right? Or is the goal to self-validate the importance of colleges? Yes, you are probably not Mark Zuckerberg, but that's okay. Mark Zuckerberg wasn't Mark Zuckerberg either until FB took off. As long as you work hard and keep learning you'll do as well as anybody else, college or not. In fact, it's better to work hard and keep learning than it is to get pieces of paper to hang on your wall. Many times you can get so enamored with the little bits of paper you forget the "work hard and keep learning" part.
byrneseyeview 16y ago
It's weird that Vivek Wadhwa's articles keep running on TechCrunch. All his controversial posts say is that the conventional wisdom outside of the valley is better than the conventional wisdom inside it. If you asked someone in, say, Iowa, they would say that dropping out of college to start a startup is a bad idea, that your CEO should be older and more experienced, that an MBA is a smart decision, etc. If I wanted to hear that, I'd just ask my parents.
marknutter 16y ago
Except that Mark Zuckerberg himself didn't know he would become "Mark Zuckerberg."
Jun8 16y ago
Look, actually it's quite simple: 1. Finish your undergraduate, because in most societieis there's a big stigma associated with not having a college degree. 2. While doing that, assess yourself. If you think you've got the entrepreneurial balls, don't get a degree. It's a sure way to (slightly) higher salary but wastes time at a crucial stage in your life, i.e. the pre-wife, pre-kids time. 3. Problem is, you can assess yourself theoretically only up to a certain point. You've got to try. So, set a time limit, e.g. 1 year, start a company and give it a shot. Then, go back to (2) and reassess. Steps (2)-(3) may be repeated a couple of times till you converge. I traveled the path of least resistance since (i) there was no one around to give me the above advice and (ii) I was in a another country where doing a start-up was rare at an early (or late) stage.
eof 16y ago
If school is free, it's definitely worth it. But to take 60-100k out for a good school, and to get the maximum value, you are talking 4 years of time and effort plus 1-3 likely years salary. In those same 5 years, if you're willing to struggle, take on a little debt, apply yourself to learning whatever it is you were going to be learning in school, you'd likely come out ahead. Maybe I underestimate the opportunities that are opened to you when you get your bachelors. Obviously, the connections you get from an Ivy league school are priceless. The work ethic you learn from very motivated individuals is also priceless. But the reality is the vast majority of people going to school aren't going to a top tier school. They aren't going to bust their ass, they are going to get into debt, and they aren't going to come out of it a super solid prospect.
eof 16y ago
I could not find a video of this, anyone got a link?

137 points by cwan 16y ago

Most students probably don't think that they are the next Mark Zuckerberg but some are probably thinking about the merits of taking a chance and learning something versus taking a bunch of meaningless courses or writing a paper that will never see the light of day.

danielnicollet 16y ago

I agree with that call for students thinking twice before dropping out for a startup. If everyone is leaving school to start companies, just go the other direction. This is just a classical case of market psychology. You never want to enter the tail-end of a big wave of risk-taking like this. Education is one of the lowest risk, highest return investment you'll ever make.

dalewindon 16y ago

I read this and all I can say is the education system is not creating entrepreneurs. I belive an entrepreneur is a person who has clear goals and sheer determination. Persistance is the key to success, you dont have to go to harvard to become wealthy... you just need to know what you want and the world will bend around you!... Keep networking and you can allways find people who can help make your dream into a reality!

palish 16y ago
It's interesting that HN is developing an anti-drop-out-of-school mentality. It's been fun to watch it manifest itself. People probably do it through a combination of "I don't want to be partially responsible for screwing with a kid's life" and "if they get discouraged from starting a startup, they weren't meant to anyway". That said, it's kind of silly that your insightful (and true) comment is being set upon by those types of people.

grandalf 16y ago

Sometimes it takes courage to quit school, sometimes it takes courage to stick with it. Instead of outright quitting I'd recommend using the resources (discounted housing, compute resources, etc.) with a light course load while bootstrapping.

alain94040 16y ago

It's really so much simpler... they are both right. While in college, start a startup! It's the optimal time of your life where taking such a risk is really no risk at all. If your idea takes-off, great, figure out what to do then. For everyone else, finish your degree and try again soon (you'll be that much more experienced).

faramarz 16y ago
I did this and I can contribute most of my hair loss for dealing with clients while in school. At some points I could not distinguish what were my priorities and you need a strong support system around you to keep you a float, mentally. It's an exhausting and distracting proposition, so don't take it lightly or do. Whichever works best.
- bricestacey 16y ago
  I am doing this and I agree. I am taking 4 classes, a 40 hour/wk job, and am working on a startup that is not yet launched. It is exhausting and I never know what deserves the most attention in my life. To make matters worse I also have a girlfriend. It's a physical, emotional, and psychological whirlwind to put it lightly. I definitely do not suggest anyone attempt what I'm doing, but if you can more power to you. If possible, I'd have never gotten a job. I don't make a lot of money, but it's hard to give it up. I think what's most important about starting a startup in school is that you probably do not make a lot of money and you're less likely to compromise where most would because of finances.
dasil003 16y ago
I like your answer, though I was actually gonna say the opposite. They're both wrong! First of all this aim high stuff is nonsense. Facebook did not start with the goal of toppling MySpace. Microsoft did not start with the goal of running on 95% of machines. Twitter did not start with the thought of becoming a billion dollar company. These companies get their through consistent cycles of ambition and execution. There's nothing particular about a "lifestyle" business other than that the ambition has waned. There's literally no business that exists that can not have ambitions and grow into a major corporation through a series of growth cycles. Likewise, there's no business plan for a billion dollar company that someone can draw up from day 1 and have it survive the market on its way to that size. As for education, that's the qualification for knowing how to run a business? There's nothing about growing a business from nothing to 9 figures that a few years in the trenches of silicon valley won't teach you better than education. Sure higher ed can teach you a lot, and you can make a lot of connections, but there's nothing special about it, and in fact it doesn't really have the same culture that makes successful startups possible. My advice to anybody in college with a project as successful as Facebook was at the time Zuckerberg dropped out is, "yes, you should drop out too. You won't be the next Zuckerberg (that ship has sailed), but you'll likely meet with some success in the valley, and certainly you'll learn more about running a real business than you were going to finishing out school."

palish 16y ago

Here is the problem with Arrington’s logic: students may come up with great ideas and start a company, but they aren’t going to be able make it big unless they have the educational foundation. Oh really?

faramarz 16y ago

There still is a stigma for putting university on hold or dropping out. Trust me there is. All you guys (Arrington included) in the valley are in a bubble, which is fine, because it works there but the rest of society doesn't feel the same (good or bad). Anywhere else, your family, your friends, your colleagues, they will not take you seriously until you finish your degree. The stigma will only die when every single college dropout has found success. So.. let's not egg people on to quit school because social pressures aren't there anymore, that's not true. Secondly, I don't thinking you have to quit completely. I am a HUGE supporter of taking a year or two off after high-school to explore the world, read books, grow up and develop a character before pursuing post-secondary education. This is what I did and I can tell you every word that came out of my professors mouth made sense to me, and if it didn't I would challenge him and raise my voice. I understood the subjects better. I felt compelled to challenge myself and take on TA roles. If I had gone to university straight out of high-school, I don't think I would have benefited the same way. This expectation that you have to choose a college in your senior year, getting accepted, doing four years and moving on to a job has made student numb. not dumb, but numb to the fact that they're merely a tiny spec in an automated process. No one really grasps the subject as long as they memorize enough to pass the course, and eventually get handed a piece of paper which they can get a job with. Break out of this cycle and start learning. You will then see education as a tool that will broaden your horizon and open a lot more opportunities.

btmorex 16y ago
Disagree completely. I only have about 50 college credits and have no plans to finish. I've also lived pretty much all over the United States and there really isn't much of a stigma... certainly not from my friends and family. Large companies and universities might have to make special arrangements for you to be on the right "career track", but that's about it (and they will do that, I have personal experience with a University inventing a new position for me).
- faramarz 16y ago
  Then IMO you're in the small percentage of people who are motivated enough, talented enough and have the discipline to go and get what they want. Most people need to be taught that.

amichail 16y ago

One problem with college is that you start to develop interests that are completely out of touch with what users want. The more educated you are, the less practical your startup ideas.

ryanhuff 16y ago
I would agree if your users are not college educated. Otherwise, I don't see it. Anyhow, life is more than just catering to user "wants". Yes, college is mostly seen as a gateway to a profession, but you can get much more than job skills out of the experience.
piguy314 16y ago
Depends on market segment. If you are trying to create a product for people in "fly-over country" then sure being more educated may prevent you from seeing things from their point of view, Walmart came from Arkansans after all... But most of the target audience for tech startups is in the first third of technology adoption curve which is dominated by educated and/or affluent and/or intelligent people.

treblig 16y ago

This is an excellent post, and a very timely one with The Social Network coming out. The film certainly glamorizes startup life, and makes it seem like you won't fail. I released my iPhone app this Summer (SeizeTheDay, http://seizethedayapp.com http://seizethedayapp.com). I'm in school at Ohio State for my senior year. We got featured on the App Store, and received app of the week from Time and CNET. This has put us around 100k downloads in the first couple of months. While in SF this Summer, I received a lot of advice to drop out and blow it up. I disagree significantly. College is fun, and the idea is that it's something I can do on the side while I'm in school. I'm currently making somewhere between beer money and a salary from iAds (will probably post some data on this at some point when we have more data available). I figure if I can grow revenue to about 4x what we're currently doing, I can afford to dive in full time. This gives me 9 months of school to keep working on the side, and see if it's realistic when I graduate. We put about $800 of investment into it, and our only recurring cost is Apple's dev license ($100/year). While not every startup can operate this way, I feel this is the way to do it. Our model lends itself pretty well to tackling a small problem and growing slowly.

jcnnghm 16y ago
I've been using your app for the last couple of weeks. I think it's the best tasks app on the iPhone at this point, really well thought out and easy to use. Any plans to offer an in-app upgrade to disable ads?
- treblig 16y ago
  Coming next week :)

rumpelstiltskin 16y ago

There's just 2 problems with Vivek's position - a) Cost - In today's economic climate, I simply cannot justify an education that, on avg, costs over $100K. Especially when student loans are involved. b) Time - 4 yrs is an unnecessarily long amount of time for a bachelors degree, not to mention another 1-2 yrs for a masters. The opportunity cost of this time only compounds the first problem. Edit: Sorry, I should have been more clear. In terms of cost, I meant that there's an institutional problem within the American education system that allows for such skyhigh tuition rates. The same reasoning applies to time. Sure, students can ramp up their classes and finish a 4 yr degree in 3 yrs, but why should they have to? Why not make it 2-3 yrs to begin with? This can easily be done by making non-relevant classes optional instead of core for a given major (for example, I had to take a course in art as part of my biology major).

mgkimsal 16y ago
So... get it done in 3. I know many people who did, and still managed to work their way through school without loans or with minimal loans. 3 years at NC State would cost you about $50k. Save up beforehand, work during school - it's doable. Hard, but doable. Looking at Oakland (Michigan), where I went, it's now about $10k/year - 3 years accelerated would be under $40k FWICT. Yes, that's not peanuts, but it's not the end of the world. Scholarships/grants/working during school - it's all doable. I'm still shocked to find people getting in to 6 figure debt for college degrees. I just don't see the payback in most cases, and likely neither will those students. :/
mikeryan 16y ago
I can kind of see the cost point - though most would argue that the lifetime earnings of someone with a college degree far outweigh a $100K investment. But the time thing kind of bugs me. As driven as HN is this may be a minority position but I really don't believe you should be working (in a 9-5 career style job) between 18-24. I really don't care so much abou t college, but have fun, go out, date guys and girls, travel, there are so many things you should be doing at that age then starting a business and you'll end up better for it. I didn't start my career until my late 20s and I don't regret that at all.

dzlobin 16y ago

That chart is stupidly loaded. How about the figures for startups with founders that didn't graduate from the Ivy League?

deleted 16y ago

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yewweitan 16y ago

Oh, how much different life would be if I were in the US. I'm a University Student in Australia, and 1 year in Stanford is literally equivalent to 4 years in Melbourne University (say $40,000/year for stanford vs the $5,000/year I pay now). Not to mention that my education is on an interest-free government loan. I can see why it's so appealing for a University student to want to drop out solely because of the cost. We all have to admit that University can't possibly cover all bases and teach one how to build a business and product. We also have to admit that University provides some very valuable connections, knowledge and perspectives for those who are there. Hence, to me, it's a question of relative value. That aside, it then again depends on the type of career path you want to take down the road. If you're in the software world, I guess you can say that building a software product is something that you can do without University. Or put slightly different, University won't make you a better programmer. Merit in our world is won by building the better hack. However, I've got friends in accounting and finance who have leveraged the crap out of the exposure opportunities at University. I'm sure many of them will land high-paying jobs in the future. Bottom line is to know your system and thrive. I sorta dislike the way Vivek tries to push statistics of startup founders as a justification for a college education. Statistics show the current state of affairs, but they don't necessarily link to the point that he is trying to make. Basically, what he says is that one should learn the ropes by working for some large companies, or even at a startup. The assumption there is that you need a degree to work at a company to gain experience, which again, varies by field (accountants better have a degree, coders at a startup, maybe not). That said, I agree with his evaluations on the merits of a college education. It would also be stupid to admit that a college degree doesn't confer a certain level of credibility; I'm sure that those with a degree will find it easier to get their foot in the door at large companies. After all of that, the questions I still think needs to be answered first and foremost is: What does it cost? Am I ready to bear that cost?

myoung8 16y ago

He doesn't seem to realize that you can learn all those things they teach you in business school (finance, marketing, corporate law) as you go if you're a real entrepreneur. Sure, you might make a few mistakes early on, but there's no better way to learn.

nedwin 16y ago

I went back to finish by degree after a few years in the work force and while it has been tough it's definitely been rewarding. It certainly hasn't stopped me pursuing the startup life and over the last three years I've worked on a bunch of startup projects with varying degrees of success. Being a university student meant that I could open doors not normally open to me, getting access to mentors and market data that I wouldn't have if I was out in the open. It also meant that while I was switching between startups I could get away without being seen as flaky as I was still "just" a university student. I'm now in a profitable startup that is growing incredibly fast but still studying, hoping to graduate in the middle of next year. People around me have said "why finish? surely you've proved you don't need university by now?" but from where I'm standing I have to finish. I used to say "if I get to x revenue or if y deal happens then I'll drop out". But having hit a couple of those milestones I'm still there - I need to prove to myself that I can finish this.

kyro 16y ago

It's funny, because even people like Zuckerberg eventually had to pull in experts with extensive educational backgrounds to help in developing the company. And if you look at any billion dollar company, those with degrees have played and continue to play a critical role in said company's growth and success. While I do agree that with a field like computer science, real world experience rather than educational background may be far more valuable (read: Diaspora), I hope this mentality is limited to those within that demographic. This certainly does not apply to people pursuing medicine, law, finance, etc. Some of the comments go so far as to claim that higher education is this era's biggest scam, which is an extremely ignorant view. I attend medical school currently, and am certain that the value I gain from the plethora of resources available, from discussing cases with professors to sticking my hands in a cadaver, is significantly more than that I'd get out of watching a few videos online, or taking some dissection tutorial. And these resources aren't free.

nostrademons 16y ago
"Some of the comments go so far as to claim that higher education is this era's biggest scam, which is an extremely ignorant view." There is a gigantic difference between medical school and University of Phoenix.
- deleted 16y ago
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- lotusleaf1987 16y ago
  I don't think anyone is arguing (on HN at least) that U of P is at all a legitimate education, but surely you can appreciate that even someone who gets a degree from a state school would develop some critical thinking skills, regardless of their major. Going to college just teaches you how to learn and illustrates that you can. Some majors are definitely more valuable/productive than others, but I still think all of them are beneficial. Of course, you need to way the cost vs. benefit ratio on an individual basis because it's probably not useful to take out $130,000 in debt for say a Sociology degree.
- lzw 16y ago

bretthellman 16y ago

Don't beat people down. You only live once.

vaksel 16y ago

I've said it time and time again...college is not that tasking...at most you'll spend 20-25 hours a week on it. With half of that being bullshit classes you are taking as a requirement. Which gives you a ton of time to work on your startup.

rblion 16y ago

Not everyone is meant to learn within four walls and from dispassionate, jaded professors. In my view, the best way to learn about life and how to survive using your skills and talents is 'in the wild' or by autodidacticism aka 'learning by experimentation by day and reading classics by night'. Just be prepared for a lot of initial rejection and to have enough conviction to walk to Mordor in your bare feet. It will take a lot more effort but it will make you much greater in the end. I am 20. I dropped out a semester before I was to transfer to Georgia Tech. I dropped out because I know the surest path to greatness is autodidacticism. It's the way da Vinci, Lincoln, Einstein, and Jobs/Wozniack did it. Being a bit more rebellious and more curious than most, it's the only method of learning that I have ever excelled with anyways. I taught myself to read and write at 3 watching Disney movies with captions. I have been reading a book a week since 5th grade. My dad got me into web design and development while I was in middle school. By the end of high school, I was already feeling jaded with our Industrial Age school system and decided to learn of the Cosmos by direct experience... HOW I GOT A WORLD CLASS EDUCATION FOR FREE: 1. ) I worked for my older brother's bootstrapped startup (Myriann.com). I watched him build websites from scratch, close big deals while still in college, and manage a team of designers and developers from all over the world. He is profitable and on pace to retire within a few years (if he wanted). 2.) I took advantage of iTunes U, TED, my public library, and free lectures from MIT, Stanford, and Harvard. I read world classics, epic biographies, and all branches of science. I discovered myself by going deeper into all subjects to the root of where each came from and why each exists. I now have a deep passion to be an artist and a scientist for the rest of my life. I will remain a student the rest of my life and apply everything I learn to my work... 3.) MY WORK: I am building a startup by trial and error. I have attempted to launch a startup 7 times since I was 15. All of them have had little success or went up in flames. I learned from each attempt and kept asking, thinking, and creating. I am now on attempt #8 and will try to enter YC this fall. I have never applied before. DON'T LET YOUR VOICE BE DROWNED BY DOGMA!!!!!!

ojbyrne 16y ago

Even if you look at Zuckerberg, he hedged his bets quite a bit. He went to Harvard, started facebook, then worked on it full time for a summer, and even when he decided he wasn't going to go back in the fall, it could easily have been just a year off.

alex1 16y ago

I think that saying something like "dropping out of college increases your chance of success in a startup, just look at the Forbes 'Richest People in America' list" is a huge fallacy. Let's face it, most college dropouts will not become billionaires. But, there are exceptions. I recently went through the Forbes billionaire list and picked out everyone that made their fortune through technology. I found that about ~35% had no Bachelor's degrees and ~55% had no Master's degrees. Then I looked at the top 7 on the list and saw that more than 50% did not have Bachelor's degrees. It is also interesting to note that billionaire college dropouts are worth $9bn on average, compared to billionaires with Ph.D.'s, worth an average of $3bn. Most college dropouts don't become billionaires. But, an overwhelming number of tech billionaires are college dropouts. Interesting... Why is there such a high percentage of tech billionaires that are college dropouts? My theory is that there are people that are born entrepreneurs and will become billionaires whichever path they take in life. Most of these people are very smart, and, as a result, end up going to Ivy Leagues. But, a time comes (usually around age 19 or sophomore year in college), when something just wakes up in them and they decide to drop out and take the plunge. These are the Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerbergs of the world. Dropping out of college does not increase your chances of success. If you look at statistics, it decreases your chances. It's just that the born entrepreneurs "wake up" right around age 19-20 (which happens to be right in the middle of college), and end up dropping out. Only if you are in this tiny group of born entrepreneurs would it make sense for you to drop out of college.

atomical 16y ago
This successful entrepreneur probably would have ended up somewhere else if he had been able to get a job with a criminal record. Sometimes life happens and people are forced to become entrepreneurs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Bannatyne http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Bannatyne

mlinsey 16y ago

An under-emphasized detail is what your college's policy is on leave-of-absences, or allowing dropouts to return. For me, dropping out to try my first startup and returning to school after it failed was literally filling out a single-sided form when I left and filling out a similar single-sided form when I wanted to return. If it's that easy at your college, the risk of dropping out is extremely small, so if you have an idea you are passionate about and the opportunity to execute on it, you may as well try. I'll bet somebody told Mark Zuckerberg that he was probably not Bill Gates, so he should probably stay in school.

annajohnson 16y ago

Is the question really: am I better off completing college, spending a few years with a big company (or a startup) and then starting my own company... or is it: what do I want to achieve - e.g. build my own company in the xyz industry - and what is the best way for me to achieve that? If you know that you want to start 'a' company but don't know exactly what kind of company or what industry, etc the question may then become: what would I like to learn about and what will enable me to learn about that? The answer may well be to go to / stay in college and then work for a company or two in order to develop business skills and work out what kind of business you'd like to build. On the other hand, if you know exactly what you want to start, and have the skills and resources to 'just do it', maybe you are better off dropping out of college. Personally, I am almost a textbook example of Vivek's advice precisely because I wasn't sure what kind of business I wanted to start back in my high school and university days. I will say this, though, even if you stay in college or work for another company, I recommend starting some kind of business on the side. Not only will you learn skills you won't learn at college or in a big company - and you may stumble on the business you really want to commit to - but it will also help off-set the socialization (i.e. to keep that nice, high paying job with benefits) that can arise in a big corporate environment and that may stop you from ever taking the entrepreneurial plunge.

bialecki 16y ago

The comments here are a wall of text.

deleted 16y ago

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d_r 16y ago

The main point, really, is causation. Mark Zuckerberg (and Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, etc, etc) dropped out of school AFTER starting a successful business. Even Paul Graham quit his day job AFTER starting a successful business. On the other hand, dropping out of school, or even quitting your day job, do not guarantee success.

alex1 16y ago
I thought Bill Gates left school to start a company. He hadn't even started a company before dropping out.
- d_r 16y ago
  Technically, it seems both are correct. (From http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/?tab=biography http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/?tab=biography) While at Harvard, Gates developed a version of the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer - the MITS Altair. In his junior year, Gates left Harvard to devote his energies to Microsoft, a company he had begun in 1975 with his childhood friend Paul Allen.
bhiggins 16y ago
Exactly right. To think otherwise is to have cargo-cult thinking.

devmonk 16y ago

IMO what's wrong with kids wanting to be entrepreneurs? He might not be the best role model, but so what? We need a culture that supports and admires startups and small business.

rblion 16y ago

Fix your course to a star, not a degree. Neg me, I don't care. Just think about how short life is and how capable any of us are when we really apply ourselves. Why do you need anyone's approval to change the world?

gfodor 16y ago

I've never read "Outliers", but apparently neither has Arrington.

deleted 16y ago

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hungh3 16y ago

Dropping out of school or quite our day job should be, IMHO, the results of a deep "self-understanding". I would advocate that one should first try to know the answer to what do I live this life for?. Why become an entrepreneur when you are meant to be a doctor? And why become a doctor when you are meant to be an entrepreneur? Look inside...

anondropout 16y ago

(long time user, anon for obvious reasons) I say you should drop out for a sufficiently interesting project. Even if it doesn't work out, by the time you're done you'll have enough experience to be far ahead of your peers. Personally, I dropped out of a top-tier school to found a startup (we closed our Series A ~3 weeks after I decided not to sign up for classes. Scariest 3 weeks of my life ;-)). After I left the startup, I was worried about my options w/o a degree - but it's really not a problem. Within 2 weeks of leaving I had 6-figure offers in NYC, Chicago, and SF. I'm now 24 yrs old, making ~$200K/year, doing work I really enjoy, and still no degree. The important thing is to prove you can do stuff. And the best proof of that is actually having done stuff.

siddhant 16y ago

This is (IMHO) very opposite to what this article says - http://www.stanford.edu/~pgbovine/startup.htm http://www.stanford.edu/~pgbovine/startup.htm Vivek talks about gathering experience before you start/join a startup (I think he mostly talks about starting a startup, rather than working for one), while Philip talks about why you should work for a startup right after your undergrad.

ndl 16y ago

"To build a business, you need to understand subjects like finance, marketing, intellectual property and corporate law." Many colleges, especially small ones, have absolutely nothing in these subjects. As for the ones that do, many successful founders and MBA holders tell me to be suspicious of said programs' ability to prepare one for actual entrepreneurship (as opposed to writing academic papers about entrepreneurship). I personally did finish college (this year), majoring in physics with minors in math and computer science. I attended a small liberal arts college with no practical business classes, of which I took 3 by hacking around the system. The physics major taught me how to get projects done, work efficiently and endure recurring high-stress situations. The math minor taught me that I suffocate in a room with too many mathematicians. The CS minor was really a collection of "X cool research area has Y," which is occasionally relevant. I definitely learned in a college, though I've yet to reach a conclusion on whether it was "worthwhile." I wish I'd taken more theatre and had more fun. I'm much more weary of grad school. As far as I can tell, college is more about exploring and learning general life lessons, while grad school buys you specialization. Specialization has power; most tech companies recognize this and hire PhDs as soon as they can afford to. But I currently have every reason to think that great founders are better off as generalists. Specialists get pulled in to support specific areas. Furthermore, while I admire those who were born to do one thing and do it well, I'm not one of them. I have very little idea what I would study. I certainly don't intend to spend my life researching a narrow subfield of physics. Unlike in college, I couldn't spend the 1st 2 years of a PhD or masters program field hopping. Occasionally someone tempts me with an interdisciplinary program; maybe I'll try one of these someday. Part of the draw of entrepreneurship is how multifaceted it appears. I have every reason to believe that for recent college grads dreaming of startups, the best way to get experience is by trying it. That's exactly what I'm doing at the moment. I also tried to form a startup in college. That didn't go too well. Now I'm starting up full time.

rahooligan 16y ago

Whether or not a wannabe entrepreneur should quit school and swing for the fences really depends on his level of competency. Some folks like gates, jobs and zuckerberg are competent enough to pull it off. Some arent. But if you are serious about becoming a successful entrepreneur you have to assume that you can pull it off which means that you should quit school.

garrettgillas 16y ago

@vwadhwa "Does anyone think that Mike would have been able to build TechCrunch if he was a college dropout?" - I do. So would @petecashmore. http://twitter.com/garrettgillas/status/25568001071 http://twitter.com/garrettgillas/status/25568001071

jasonkester 16y ago

I graduated from high school in 1989, at the very apex of 80's butt-rock heavy metal. My school had probably 200 guys with ratted out long hair, most of whom owned a guitar and dreamed of being a rock star. Of that group, probably 50 played well enough to do a creditable "Eruption" solo, and there were half a dozen guys who could get on stage at an assembly and keep the entire school entertained for 10 minutes. Lots of those guys, when asked what they planned to do after school would look you in the eye and tell you they were going to be a rock star. Lots of them tried, forgoing college to form bands and live the dream. At the time, there were so many stories of starving bands rising out of the LA club scene to land million dollar contracts that it seemed like all you had to do was show up. It was a lot like reading the tech press today about the Bay Area. Anybody care to guess how many of the guys from my school actually became rock stars? So here we are, 20 years later, seeing exactly the same pattern. We hear about the Twitters of the world, getting zillions of dollars for some trivial idea, and figure we can do that too. And just like the kid from my youth with the Judas Priest t-shirt, we ignore the overwhelming amount of evidence we see every day that there's pretty much zero chance of that happening. Here's an idea for a reality check. Do a quick search for "Ask HN: Rate my startup" here. Count(*), then Count(millionaires). That's what you're up against. If I were in school, I'd stick it out just to hedge my bet.

luminarious 16y ago
If you do the same thing everyone else is doing, you will fail. If you work really hard, you will perhaps fail to a lesser degree than everybody else. But the only way to win is to play your own game.
- jasonkester 16y ago
  Play your own game, but stack the deck in your favor. It's no great feat to bootstrap a software business from within a company paying you $100k fresh out of school.
- joe_the_user 16y ago
  If you play a typical game in normal fashion, you lose when losing is typical. If you play reasonably well in a game where modest success is typical, you will likely get modest success. Most people who play absolutely their own game lose too. Most big successes play a game where winning is typical and play it better than average. There's a "sweet spot" of self-expression and following the crowd but it's still fairly close to the crowd.

jteo 16y ago

Correlation does not imply causation.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

stackthat 16y ago

You need to decide why you need to get education for, Get educated because you love it, go ahead and do it. Get educated to get rich? Yes that's a way but also there are hundred other ways to get rich, so why bother? (Assuming you got some skills)

DanielBMarkham 16y ago

The harsh reality is that for every Zuckerberg, there are a thousand who drop out of college and fail. Many get discouraged after their failures and move to other professions which require less skill and education. So if this is the problem, the goal here should be to prevent folks from getting discouraged and doing things they'd rather not do, right? To keep on learning no matter what place they live in, right? Or is the goal to self-validate the importance of colleges? Yes, you are probably not Mark Zuckerberg, but that's okay. Mark Zuckerberg wasn't Mark Zuckerberg either until FB took off. As long as you work hard and keep learning you'll do as well as anybody else, college or not. In fact, it's better to work hard and keep learning than it is to get pieces of paper to hang on your wall. Many times you can get so enamored with the little bits of paper you forget the "work hard and keep learning" part.

byrneseyeview 16y ago

It's weird that Vivek Wadhwa's articles keep running on TechCrunch. All his controversial posts say is that the conventional wisdom outside of the valley is better than the conventional wisdom inside it. If you asked someone in, say, Iowa, they would say that dropping out of college to start a startup is a bad idea, that your CEO should be older and more experienced, that an MBA is a smart decision, etc. If I wanted to hear that, I'd just ask my parents.

marknutter 16y ago

Except that Mark Zuckerberg himself didn't know he would become "Mark Zuckerberg."

Jun8 16y ago

Look, actually it's quite simple: 1. Finish your undergraduate, because in most societieis there's a big stigma associated with not having a college degree. 2. While doing that, assess yourself. If you think you've got the entrepreneurial balls, don't get a degree. It's a sure way to (slightly) higher salary but wastes time at a crucial stage in your life, i.e. the pre-wife, pre-kids time. 3. Problem is, you can assess yourself theoretically only up to a certain point. You've got to try. So, set a time limit, e.g. 1 year, start a company and give it a shot. Then, go back to (2) and reassess. Steps (2)-(3) may be repeated a couple of times till you converge. I traveled the path of least resistance since (i) there was no one around to give me the above advice and (ii) I was in a another country where doing a start-up was rare at an early (or late) stage.

eof 16y ago

If school is free, it's definitely worth it. But to take 60-100k out for a good school, and to get the maximum value, you are talking 4 years of time and effort plus 1-3 likely years salary. In those same 5 years, if you're willing to struggle, take on a little debt, apply yourself to learning whatever it is you were going to be learning in school, you'd likely come out ahead. Maybe I underestimate the opportunities that are opened to you when you get your bachelors. Obviously, the connections you get from an Ivy league school are priceless. The work ethic you learn from very motivated individuals is also priceless. But the reality is the vast majority of people going to school aren't going to a top tier school. They aren't going to bust their ass, they are going to get into debt, and they aren't going to come out of it a super solid prospect.

eof 16y ago

I could not find a video of this, anyone got a link?