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Part of the point is that the gap in the middle often doesn't matter. I've hung around the Stanford crowd and as I enter my thirties I am awestruck by the oppor

Part of the point is that the gap in the middle often doesn't matter. I've hung around the Stanford crowd and as I enter my thirties I am awestruck by the opportunities they have regardless of what they have done since graduation. The credential is almost all that matters, as long as they dont mess up massively. A common path is: Graduate Stanford => Work at Mckinsey => Get hired into VC. Graduate Stanford => Raise 15 Million dollar series A with your buddy => Doesn't matter what happens you will end up rich. It's not a cynical opinion, I have seen it myself and I am doing very well for myself. I worked under an Economics PhD who was the number one in his class (top 5 phd program) and graduated top of his undergrad at UPenn. His incompetence relative to his credentials shattered my respect for the way that we allocate positions of power

apsec112 6y ago
I think most people who raise series A and then fail don't get rich. I've certainly known people who raised more than that, couldn't make the business work and then wound up personally bankrupt.
- logicslave 6y ago
  Possibly, but when you raise it at 24 or 25 years old it looks extremely impressive and sets you up for upper management at other companies.
- TuringNYC 6y ago
  ...or they "got operating experience" and end up a partner at a VC firm.
opportune 6y ago
I'm familiar with this path as well, and have myself also probably benefited significantly from a slightly lower tier version of it. I think the issue is more that we have a lot of positive feedback cycles/signal boosting that occur based on early career opportunities. I don't think research fraud is necessarily part of it though, because once you're accepted into a PhD program at a top program you're probably going to graduate anyway; same with undergrad. But the signal boosting is very real, and I find it especially problematic given how much luck there is in things like getting into a certain college.
neffy 6y ago
That might have more to do with the subject than the individual.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
>The credential is almost all that matters, as long as they dont mess up massively. Maybe the west coast is different but everyone I know (including a fair number of people who went to Harvard) who's in any position of power didn't have "tool around doing whatever and don't F up" as their career summary until that point. They had success upon success. While some of them didn't necessarily choose big grand things to spend that time doing, they were all successful at it. Nobody just went with the flow. The "not bad but not great either" people who were just lucky enough to have opportunity early on but don't have the skill to keep turning the opportunity into success (or just want to chill and raise a family) tend to seem shoehorned onto career paths that dead end somewhere in middle management.
shuckles 6y ago
Of every 2,000 graduating seniors at Stanford every year, far less than 1% end up in top consulting companies. Even fewer raise a Series A 2-3 years out of school. I am personally not so shocked that these individuals end up succeeding at other social games. They have a track record of doing so.
- TrackerFF 6y ago
  What about GSB? I think 20% of their students hail from MBB, same as with HBS. I'd imagine that these to-be MBA-holders will seek positions at less grind-y places. Would not surprise me if a lot of them went to join VC firms, or product manager jobs at larger firms, before VC.

apsec112 6y ago

I think most people who raise series A and then fail don't get rich. I've certainly known people who raised more than that, couldn't make the business work and then wound up personally bankrupt.

logicslave 6y ago
Possibly, but when you raise it at 24 or 25 years old it looks extremely impressive and sets you up for upper management at other companies.
TuringNYC 6y ago
...or they "got operating experience" and end up a partner at a VC firm.

opportune 6y ago

I'm familiar with this path as well, and have myself also probably benefited significantly from a slightly lower tier version of it. I think the issue is more that we have a lot of positive feedback cycles/signal boosting that occur based on early career opportunities. I don't think research fraud is necessarily part of it though, because once you're accepted into a PhD program at a top program you're probably going to graduate anyway; same with undergrad. But the signal boosting is very real, and I find it especially problematic given how much luck there is in things like getting into a certain college.

neffy 6y ago

That might have more to do with the subject than the individual.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

>The credential is almost all that matters, as long as they dont mess up massively. Maybe the west coast is different but everyone I know (including a fair number of people who went to Harvard) who's in any position of power didn't have "tool around doing whatever and don't F up" as their career summary until that point. They had success upon success. While some of them didn't necessarily choose big grand things to spend that time doing, they were all successful at it. Nobody just went with the flow. The "not bad but not great either" people who were just lucky enough to have opportunity early on but don't have the skill to keep turning the opportunity into success (or just want to chill and raise a family) tend to seem shoehorned onto career paths that dead end somewhere in middle management.

shuckles 6y ago

Of every 2,000 graduating seniors at Stanford every year, far less than 1% end up in top consulting companies. Even fewer raise a Series A 2-3 years out of school. I am personally not so shocked that these individuals end up succeeding at other social games. They have a track record of doing so.

TrackerFF 6y ago
What about GSB? I think 20% of their students hail from MBB, same as with HBS. I'd imagine that these to-be MBA-holders will seek positions at less grind-y places. Would not surprise me if a lot of them went to join VC firms, or product manager jobs at larger firms, before VC.