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It is a mild pet peeve of mine these titles which make it sound like these entrepreneurs weren't doing anything before starting their reputation making companie
by dmarchand90 3y ago
It is a mild pet peeve of mine these titles which make it sound like these entrepreneurs weren't doing anything before starting their reputation making companies.
He had already gotten a masters at MIT and a phd from Stanford. From his Wikipedia:
During his 25-year career (1958–1983) at Texas Instruments, he rose up in the ranks to become the group vice president responsible for TI's worldwide semiconductor business.[13] In the late 1970s, when TI's focus turned to calculators, digital watches and home computers, Chang felt like his career focused on semiconductors was at a dead end at TI.[2]
Chang left TI and later became president and chief operating officer of General Instrument Corporation (1984–1985).[14]
So he was already running massive companies by that point anyway haha
- m463 3y agoon the other hand, maybe stories like this can get a 55 year old CEO or CTO to break off and do something cool.
- chipdart 3y agoI doubt that people with established careers in top executive positions can't lead unless they read an article on someone having done that already.
- fragmede 3y agoyeah but it could still be the push that a 55 years old exec needs to go off into the wilderness and start their own thing.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- m463 3y agomaybe not the article, but the data that people of an uncommon age have been successful doing something. It's like learning how many people 55 are meeting online and getting married, or starting an exercise program and doing some event, etc. someone is setting an example, and this documents it.
- wslh 3y agoThe main point I see is the age beyond its background in a "very young oriented" startup community. Just see YC. It is obvious that you cannot build a company such as TSMC coming from nowhere. I don't think it is important that he went to MIT or work for a specific company such as TI. He could study and work in less known places but could had the knowledge, drive and was in the right place to start a business. He is an entrepreneur.
- kredd 3y agoVery hot take for these types of forums, but credentials and connections matter a lot. Maybe they matter less the closer you get to America, but having a degree from MIT or equivalent, opens up enormous doors in the East. So, I would argue, if he “just had the knowledge” the odds would be against him.
- wslh 3y agoMy argument was to balance against the age because it is purely neglected in the startup community. Connections and trust could be built around the world, including the United States.
- otoburb 3y ago>>[...] credentials and connections matter a lot. Paul Graham tried to add a bit of nuance to your point in a recent essay[1]: "The empirical evidence is clear on this. If you look at where the largest numbers of successful startups come from, it's pretty much the same as the list of the most selective universities. I don't think it's the prestigious names of these universities that cause more good startups to come out of them. Nor do I think it's because the quality of the teaching is better. What's driving this is simply the difficulty of getting in. You have to be pretty smart and determined to get into MIT or Cambridge, so if you do manage to get in, you'll find the other students include a lot of smart and determined people." Also check out the footnote he wrote for the above paragraph. Not that we all take pg's word as startup gospel, but his main point is that connections matter much more than the (final degree) credential. [1] https://paulgraham.com/google.html https://paulgraham.com/google.html