5 ms·

I reject your rejection

53 points by mark_h 18y ago

amackera 18y ago
This anecdote fills me with hope for what a determined person is capable of. Lately I've been stuck thinking credentials are supremely important. I'm happy that people can challenge this and become successful!
- brandnewlow 18y ago
  I think the key here was that the kid called up and said he wanted to play ball. he didn't call to strong arm the admission office, he called and essentially said "what do I need to do to be a stronger applicant next year?" That's just a winning attitude in general. It shows the guy's got a goal and is willing to do what it takes to make it happen.
- endtime 18y ago
  >Lately I've been stuck thinking credentials are supremely important. I'm happy that people can challenge this and become successful! Credentials are supremely important. For every plucky kid who does something like this and succeeds, there are a hundred plucky kids that try something like this and still don't get accepted.
- carpo 18y ago
  When I was at university and doing a course that I wasn't really interested in (but which was the only one I could get into with my poor marks), I attempted to do an internal transfer to a degree in Computers. I was rejected. I ended up doing it different to this story ... I was young, angry and annoyed - couldn't they see my passion and enthusiasm? I left university that year and began teaching myself what I wanted to learn. My success has been nowhere near the college drop-outs you hear of in the news, but in just a few years I was earning a very good salary programming. I'm from Australia, where a degree seems to be not as important as in other countries - most jobs will have "degree or industry experience" so if you can get the experience somewhere small, you can work your way up. However, sometimes I wish I'd gone to university, and I still play with the idea of getting a degree - but I've got too much work to do on my startup now. Maybe later I will. It's true that determination can help you do wonders. And in my case, that initial rejection just added more steel to mine.
aneesh 18y ago
Randy Pausch put it best: "The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something." If you haven't heard this phrase, you really should watch his "Last Lecture": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo
- vlad 18y ago
  Many years prior to his "Last Lecture", Randy was Pausch was first famous for his Time Management lecture. I posted the video here 8 days ago. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=459095 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=459095
  - adamsmith 18y ago
    Watching it now. It seems like a breakage that the video didn't get voted higher!
- tsally 18y ago
  The Last Lecture is absolutely worth watching (and reading, there is a book). Just as a note for those who haven't seen it yet, Randy was rejected from Carnegie Mellon when applying there for graduate school. He was also rejected when he applied to be an Imagineer with Disney. Eventually he ended up getting his PhD from CMU and was offered a job as an Imagineer. You'll have to watch/read the Last Lecture to find out exactly how all of it went down :-).
  - froo 18y ago
    Another similar story is about John Lasseter (one of the founding members of Pixar, who is also responsible for drawing the BSD daemon) was fired from Disney after trying to introduce 3D technology into their animation pipeline. He never gave up and after a brief stint at Lucasfilm went onto founding Pixar with Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs. Disney ended up purchasing Pixar in 2006 for about $7.4 billion
- wallflower 18y ago
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
raghus 18y ago
Hmm... I wonder if pg is going to start getting emails/calls after the next YC cycle asking how to remedy the the Bs in unsuccessful applications. Or maybe he already does...
- patio11 18y ago
  Here's some unsolicited advice for anybody: a) build the product b) charge money for it c) get to ramen profitable. Then you can try asking for investment again. If they say yes this time, great. If not, you are in a pretty good situation for continuing development and proceeding down the boring path of taking money from people. Go far enough down that path and you'll have to beat off investors with a stick. [Edit to add: It is really scandalously cheap to get something on the Internet these days if you have a programmer on board. People used to cite "thousands" of dollars a lot, and thousands is a darn low number compared with "real" businesses. If someone was asking me for advice I'd say its much easier to do if you have "hundreds" but I have empirical experience that it is possible with "tens".]
  - LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
    I started this last week. Good domain, 5 years: $50 Reasonably powerful VPS, per month: $20 The rest is pretty much brain-sweat at this point.
vlad 18y ago
Two years ago on News.YC, I posted a well-received* four page article by the author here. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20032 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20032 It summarizes the essence of founding Tripod and his "I'm not smart, just hard working" attitude more than Gabrielle's blog post does. (*Of course, back then, 40 upvotes was incredible.)
mattmaroon 18y ago
I can tell you for a fact that line doesn't work on women.
- volida 18y ago
  It doesn't work giving them what they want? Because that's what he did.
snowbird122 18y ago
Well done. Make your own luck.
scott_s 18y ago
I was at the College of William and Mary for three years as a graduate student. One of those years, a girl was graduating who did something similar to get in. Her application was wait-listed, so she showed up on campus with a sandwhich board saying so, and that she desperately wanted to come to WM. She did, and she did well.

53 points by mark_h 18y ago

This anecdote fills me with hope for what a determined person is capable of. Lately I've been stuck thinking credentials are supremely important. I'm happy that people can challenge this and become successful!

brandnewlow 18y ago
I think the key here was that the kid called up and said he wanted to play ball. he didn't call to strong arm the admission office, he called and essentially said "what do I need to do to be a stronger applicant next year?" That's just a winning attitude in general. It shows the guy's got a goal and is willing to do what it takes to make it happen.
endtime 18y ago
>Lately I've been stuck thinking credentials are supremely important. I'm happy that people can challenge this and become successful! Credentials are supremely important. For every plucky kid who does something like this and succeeds, there are a hundred plucky kids that try something like this and still don't get accepted.
carpo 18y ago
When I was at university and doing a course that I wasn't really interested in (but which was the only one I could get into with my poor marks), I attempted to do an internal transfer to a degree in Computers. I was rejected. I ended up doing it different to this story ... I was young, angry and annoyed - couldn't they see my passion and enthusiasm? I left university that year and began teaching myself what I wanted to learn. My success has been nowhere near the college drop-outs you hear of in the news, but in just a few years I was earning a very good salary programming. I'm from Australia, where a degree seems to be not as important as in other countries - most jobs will have "degree or industry experience" so if you can get the experience somewhere small, you can work your way up. However, sometimes I wish I'd gone to university, and I still play with the idea of getting a degree - but I've got too much work to do on my startup now. Maybe later I will. It's true that determination can help you do wonders. And in my case, that initial rejection just added more steel to mine.

aneesh 18y ago

Randy Pausch put it best: "The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something." If you haven't heard this phrase, you really should watch his "Last Lecture": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

vlad 18y ago
Many years prior to his "Last Lecture", Randy was Pausch was first famous for his Time Management lecture. I posted the video here 8 days ago. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=459095 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=459095
- adamsmith 18y ago
  Watching it now. It seems like a breakage that the video didn't get voted higher!
tsally 18y ago
The Last Lecture is absolutely worth watching (and reading, there is a book). Just as a note for those who haven't seen it yet, Randy was rejected from Carnegie Mellon when applying there for graduate school. He was also rejected when he applied to be an Imagineer with Disney. Eventually he ended up getting his PhD from CMU and was offered a job as an Imagineer. You'll have to watch/read the Last Lecture to find out exactly how all of it went down :-).
- froo 18y ago
  Another similar story is about John Lasseter (one of the founding members of Pixar, who is also responsible for drawing the BSD daemon) was fired from Disney after trying to introduce 3D technology into their animation pipeline. He never gave up and after a brief stint at Lucasfilm went onto founding Pixar with Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs. Disney ended up purchasing Pixar in 2006 for about $7.4 billion
wallflower 18y ago

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

raghus 18y ago

Hmm... I wonder if pg is going to start getting emails/calls after the next YC cycle asking how to remedy the the Bs in unsuccessful applications. Or maybe he already does...

patio11 18y ago
Here's some unsolicited advice for anybody: a) build the product b) charge money for it c) get to ramen profitable. Then you can try asking for investment again. If they say yes this time, great. If not, you are in a pretty good situation for continuing development and proceeding down the boring path of taking money from people. Go far enough down that path and you'll have to beat off investors with a stick. [Edit to add: It is really scandalously cheap to get something on the Internet these days if you have a programmer on board. People used to cite "thousands" of dollars a lot, and thousands is a darn low number compared with "real" businesses. If someone was asking me for advice I'd say its much easier to do if you have "hundreds" but I have empirical experience that it is possible with "tens".]
- LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
  I started this last week. Good domain, 5 years: $50 Reasonably powerful VPS, per month: $20 The rest is pretty much brain-sweat at this point.

vlad 18y ago

Two years ago on News.YC, I posted a well-received* four page article by the author here. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20032 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20032 It summarizes the essence of founding Tripod and his "I'm not smart, just hard working" attitude more than Gabrielle's blog post does. (*Of course, back then, 40 upvotes was incredible.)

mattmaroon 18y ago

I can tell you for a fact that line doesn't work on women.

volida 18y ago
It doesn't work giving them what they want? Because that's what he did.

snowbird122 18y ago

Well done. Make your own luck.

scott_s 18y ago

I was at the College of William and Mary for three years as a graduate student. One of those years, a girl was graduating who did something similar to get in. Her application was wait-listed, so she showed up on campus with a sandwhich board saying so, and that she desperately wanted to come to WM. She did, and she did well.