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Many luminaries including Peter Thiel have been saying this but I see a little bit of a contradiction while comparing their statements to their backgrounds. Pet
by tgebru 14y ago
Many luminaries including Peter Thiel have been saying this but I see a little bit of a contradiction while comparing their statements to their backgrounds. Peter Thiel, for example, went to Stanford undergrad and law school. Chris Dixon has an MA from Columbia. PG has a PhD from Harvard etc...I'm also wondering if the reverse is happening in the startup world where investors see you unfavorably if you're not a 19 year old college dropout but instead have an advanced degree. In addition, like the previous poster pointed out, credentialism exists everywhere. People want to trust one source for vetting multiple candidates. This happens with YC for example. YC startups are more likely to raise money because investors trust the partners' judgement in vetting the founders.
- pifflesnort 14y agoThese sorts of people have every incentive to target those more likely to be willing to serve as grist for their mill; young, idealistic, inexperienced individuals that will take the bait. Never mind that most of them will fail, or that they're really not remotely qualified or experienced enough to produce good work in their field of interest. The amount invested is effectively pocket change, so much so that it doesn't matter if you have a 100 failures for every Dropbox. It's a fools game to see the VC market as anything other than just another business industry, with different set or empty credentials. They use those credentials to convince 'entrepreneurs' to make themselves into a product to be sold, for pennies on the dollar.