6 ms·

Aah, more of this madness. The only people who can afford to drop out of college to pursue a startup are those with parents who will subsidize them while they d

Aah, more of this madness. The only people who can afford to drop out of college to pursue a startup are those with parents who will subsidize them while they do it, have extensive contacts or those who get very, very lucky. It's just not practical advice and society doesn't treat folks in the status quo particularly well who do so. You might get far, but inevitably you'll get stuck in a rut somewhere along the way, if you end up out of startupland, because of your lack of an degree or sometimes, an advanced degree or two. It's not fair, but that's the way the world is. If brilliant folks were more interested in finding ways to bust the higher ed/accreditation monopoly, rather than building the next Facebook or Twitter-killer, perhaps we can solve this problem before our kids become adults.

jrockway 18y ago
I don't really see this as a problem. After college, nobody asks or cares if you went to college. So while you do need to have some skills to get a job, you don't need a piece of paper anymore. (Not in the programming industry, anyway.) If you want to do a startup, spend the 4 years that you would have spent in college learning how to program and making money doing that. Then, you'll be able to support your own startup.
- omnivore 18y ago
  And if you fail, go back to college and get the degree. You say that no one cares. But job postings all over the web pretty much speak the opposite. Google doesn't just want degrees, they want degrees from top schools. So sure, if someone wants to work for a fly-by-night operation that MIGHT strike it rich, have a blast. But if they actually want health insurance someday, then it might be handy to get the degree about the way. People ask if you went to college and if you graduated, after that, no one cares it's true. But without it, you better have a compelling story or have contacts that "won't care." Ten years ago or more, you could easily get away without having a degree. But graduating NOW and expecting to do that? Yeah right. And if it were easy to take 4 years and learn to program and "make money doing it" without the slightest clue how to get there, then everyone would do it. College affords you more than enough free time to "learn to program on the side to make money doing it" while also giving you a backup plan, in case your brilliant plans don't work out.
  - modoc 18y ago
    Google cares. A lot. They reached out to me to offer me a position, and then retracted the offer once they learned the lack of degrees on my resume wasn't just a space saving mechanism. I've never had another company turn me down, even if they specifically "required" bachelors in CS, etc... in the job posting. And I'm not talking about "fly-by-night operations". Large companies, Fortune 500s, traditional non-tech focused companies, etc... Assuming that you aren't on a 100% scholarship, someone (your parents or you by working part time) is paying for your rent and food. I think most places (Google aside) would hire someone with 1 year of contributing to a relevant open source project, or a couple small web applications launched, over someone with 4 years of learning the technology from 2-5 years ago. Experience DOING relevant work always trumps a college degree, especially in the tech field. If you want to get a degree, that's great. I won't look down on you or even think for a second that you're wasting your time. But it's certainly not the only or even the best path.
    - omnivore 18y ago
      Having gone from working in higher ed to my own startup, I've always been a proponent of people waiting to go to college or doing other things. I just realize that for a lot of folks, it's just not very good advice and they can increase the likelihood of success, if they go to school for one reason or another.
    - electromagnetic 18y ago
      It seems odd to me, and very dangerous business wise, that Google would reject someone because of their lack of a degree. I'm a writer, and my experience in journalism is that editors actively screen out people with degrees in journalism because it teaches them bad practices (In all actuality it teaches them good [read: old] practices, but kills personal voice which is now everything, praise Hunter S. Thompson!). 1+ years experience writing always beats 4+ years in a degree program with 0+ years experience actually writing. I've always thought programming was akin to writing, it's all about putting pieces together to make the whole work better. My brother went the programming way and I went the writing way (I tried programming, but I quickly realized I couldn't do it as a day-to-day 9-5 job). So I don't really get why Google would require a degree, because surely the most important thing is if someones code is elegant.
- blhack 18y ago
  I could not agree with you more. Look, if you can cut it as a programmer you can cut it is a programmer. Start programming, get involved in some OSS projects, get your name out there! If you really genuinely want to be a "Computer Software Engineer", spend 4 years networking with other engineers and honing in your programming skills, not taking sociology and micro economics.
modoc 18y ago
I have to disagree with this. I dropped out of college, spent the winter as a snowboard bum in Colorado, moved back to Boston, and started working for minimum wage in retail. Managed to save enough money to buy a new computer. Got a better job, rinse & repeat. At no time was I subsidized by anyone else. I also don't think I was "very very lucky". Sure, I consider myself lucky in general, but the path from dropping out of college to success is all about hard work (and some natural aptitude wrt tech startup stuff). I'd argue that if you have what it takes to create a successful tech startup (technical skills, strong drive/work ethic, determination, unhealthy willingness to work 16 hours a day, etc...) then you could do just fine dropping out of college. If you don't have those things, then I'd say stay in college for sure, but you won't start a successful startup regardless. I'm also not sure what you want people to "fix" in higher education. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it sounds like you want EVERYONE to create startups. No matter how amazing college is, most people simply don't the right set of traits for that, and that's 100% okay! Society needs artists, call reps, grocery store managers, stay at home moms/dads, and everything else. Plus I honestly don't think sitting at the computer for 10-18 hours/day is physically or mentally healthy. So while I do it a lot, I'm really glad most people don't.
- omnivore 18y ago
  I certainly didn't tell everyone to create startups. But reading here, that's what it seems like it trends towards. If you're over the age of 27, your example just doesn't count. It's not nearly as easy today to do what you did, than it was a decade ago. The economy has changed dramatically and ancedotal experiences aside, it's hardly a blueprint for mass success. There is no inverse relationship between "hard work" and "success" in a startup. But that's a fallacy that a lot of folks here seem to believe. If it worked for you, that's great. But it's not some sort of reality for everyone.
  - modoc 18y ago
    My point specifically is that hard work = success is ONLY for for the very small sub-set of the population that has the right aptitude/skills to create a successful startup/tech career beyond your standard cube-rat (no offense to cube-rats). It's absolutely NOT for everyone. If your point is: for the average person, college is important to success, then sure. My point is that for the tech startup founding type people here, college is probably not very important to success. You called out startups in your OP "The only people who can afford to drop out of college to pursue a startup" so that's what I'm focusing on here.
fmora 18y ago
Wow, you pretty much fail without trying. Saying that you have to have somebody supporting you or else you won't succeed is a self fulfilling prophecy. Unfortunately you are what people call, "little people". People that cannot think big and find excuses for their failures.
rjurney 18y ago
I have to disagree with you here. I dropped out of college, where I was a poor student, to do back breaking labor and found my first startup living on the cheap in India. I have since tanked startups repeatedly. During my second startup I labored on building a 4000 sq foot house at $12 an hour while working part-time on my prototype. None of that required a parental safety net, just personal hardship. Ironically, its been the best thing that could have happened to me. I'm an independent learner and so I was ill suited for college. In startups, I get to develop highly marketable, cutting-edge skills using technologies not taught in college or used in a corporate environment. I then apply these through consulting as the market catches up and get a big fat raise from the skills I develop at each startup. Although some money from the startups would be nice, too :) Working on that.
rcoder 18y ago
It's not a question of being able to "afford" dropping out to work on a startup, so much as it's a question of what you're willing to give up to do it. My parents made less than $30k combined when I entered college in the late 90s. I dropped out after my freshman year, worked as a restaurant cashier and temp for about six months, then managed to land an entry-level media production job at a startup. Since then, I've slowly clawed my way up to a decent development gig at a major systems player in Silicon Valley, all without the benefit of a college degree, or any major financial support other than my own earnings. Even several years after I first "broke in" to the industry, however, I've had entire years where I made only a few thousand dollars. If you're willing to live in shared housing, eat a lot of cheap stir-fry and soup, and occasionally suck it up and ask a friend or family member for a couple of hundred bucks to make rent that month, you can weather some pretty drastic changes in your income. Regardless, after a decade or so of working as a developer, I've found that the lack of a college degree matters less and less. Am I less likely to be on the short list of folks to get promoted to upper management? Almost certainly. Does that bother me? Not really. I like writing code, and am happy to continue doing so until something else seems more interesting.
koningrobot 18y ago
It's not fair, but that's the way the world is. [...] perhaps we can solve this problem before our kids become adults. Alternatively, we can opt not to have kids so they don't have to deal with this problem or making a living in general at all. If the world isn't fair, why create more people that will then have to live through it?

jrockway 18y ago

I don't really see this as a problem. After college, nobody asks or cares if you went to college. So while you do need to have some skills to get a job, you don't need a piece of paper anymore. (Not in the programming industry, anyway.) If you want to do a startup, spend the 4 years that you would have spent in college learning how to program and making money doing that. Then, you'll be able to support your own startup.

omnivore 18y ago
And if you fail, go back to college and get the degree. You say that no one cares. But job postings all over the web pretty much speak the opposite. Google doesn't just want degrees, they want degrees from top schools. So sure, if someone wants to work for a fly-by-night operation that MIGHT strike it rich, have a blast. But if they actually want health insurance someday, then it might be handy to get the degree about the way. People ask if you went to college and if you graduated, after that, no one cares it's true. But without it, you better have a compelling story or have contacts that "won't care." Ten years ago or more, you could easily get away without having a degree. But graduating NOW and expecting to do that? Yeah right. And if it were easy to take 4 years and learn to program and "make money doing it" without the slightest clue how to get there, then everyone would do it. College affords you more than enough free time to "learn to program on the side to make money doing it" while also giving you a backup plan, in case your brilliant plans don't work out.
- modoc 18y ago
  Google cares. A lot. They reached out to me to offer me a position, and then retracted the offer once they learned the lack of degrees on my resume wasn't just a space saving mechanism. I've never had another company turn me down, even if they specifically "required" bachelors in CS, etc... in the job posting. And I'm not talking about "fly-by-night operations". Large companies, Fortune 500s, traditional non-tech focused companies, etc... Assuming that you aren't on a 100% scholarship, someone (your parents or you by working part time) is paying for your rent and food. I think most places (Google aside) would hire someone with 1 year of contributing to a relevant open source project, or a couple small web applications launched, over someone with 4 years of learning the technology from 2-5 years ago. Experience DOING relevant work always trumps a college degree, especially in the tech field. If you want to get a degree, that's great. I won't look down on you or even think for a second that you're wasting your time. But it's certainly not the only or even the best path.
  - omnivore 18y ago
    Having gone from working in higher ed to my own startup, I've always been a proponent of people waiting to go to college or doing other things. I just realize that for a lot of folks, it's just not very good advice and they can increase the likelihood of success, if they go to school for one reason or another.
  - electromagnetic 18y ago
    It seems odd to me, and very dangerous business wise, that Google would reject someone because of their lack of a degree. I'm a writer, and my experience in journalism is that editors actively screen out people with degrees in journalism because it teaches them bad practices (In all actuality it teaches them good [read: old] practices, but kills personal voice which is now everything, praise Hunter S. Thompson!). 1+ years experience writing always beats 4+ years in a degree program with 0+ years experience actually writing. I've always thought programming was akin to writing, it's all about putting pieces together to make the whole work better. My brother went the programming way and I went the writing way (I tried programming, but I quickly realized I couldn't do it as a day-to-day 9-5 job). So I don't really get why Google would require a degree, because surely the most important thing is if someones code is elegant.
blhack 18y ago
I could not agree with you more. Look, if you can cut it as a programmer you can cut it is a programmer. Start programming, get involved in some OSS projects, get your name out there! If you really genuinely want to be a "Computer Software Engineer", spend 4 years networking with other engineers and honing in your programming skills, not taking sociology and micro economics.

modoc 18y ago

I have to disagree with this. I dropped out of college, spent the winter as a snowboard bum in Colorado, moved back to Boston, and started working for minimum wage in retail. Managed to save enough money to buy a new computer. Got a better job, rinse & repeat. At no time was I subsidized by anyone else. I also don't think I was "very very lucky". Sure, I consider myself lucky in general, but the path from dropping out of college to success is all about hard work (and some natural aptitude wrt tech startup stuff). I'd argue that if you have what it takes to create a successful tech startup (technical skills, strong drive/work ethic, determination, unhealthy willingness to work 16 hours a day, etc...) then you could do just fine dropping out of college. If you don't have those things, then I'd say stay in college for sure, but you won't start a successful startup regardless. I'm also not sure what you want people to "fix" in higher education. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it sounds like you want EVERYONE to create startups. No matter how amazing college is, most people simply don't the right set of traits for that, and that's 100% okay! Society needs artists, call reps, grocery store managers, stay at home moms/dads, and everything else. Plus I honestly don't think sitting at the computer for 10-18 hours/day is physically or mentally healthy. So while I do it a lot, I'm really glad most people don't.

omnivore 18y ago
I certainly didn't tell everyone to create startups. But reading here, that's what it seems like it trends towards. If you're over the age of 27, your example just doesn't count. It's not nearly as easy today to do what you did, than it was a decade ago. The economy has changed dramatically and ancedotal experiences aside, it's hardly a blueprint for mass success. There is no inverse relationship between "hard work" and "success" in a startup. But that's a fallacy that a lot of folks here seem to believe. If it worked for you, that's great. But it's not some sort of reality for everyone.
- modoc 18y ago
  My point specifically is that hard work = success is ONLY for for the very small sub-set of the population that has the right aptitude/skills to create a successful startup/tech career beyond your standard cube-rat (no offense to cube-rats). It's absolutely NOT for everyone. If your point is: for the average person, college is important to success, then sure. My point is that for the tech startup founding type people here, college is probably not very important to success. You called out startups in your OP "The only people who can afford to drop out of college to pursue a startup" so that's what I'm focusing on here.

fmora 18y ago

Wow, you pretty much fail without trying. Saying that you have to have somebody supporting you or else you won't succeed is a self fulfilling prophecy. Unfortunately you are what people call, "little people". People that cannot think big and find excuses for their failures.

rjurney 18y ago

I have to disagree with you here. I dropped out of college, where I was a poor student, to do back breaking labor and found my first startup living on the cheap in India. I have since tanked startups repeatedly. During my second startup I labored on building a 4000 sq foot house at $12 an hour while working part-time on my prototype. None of that required a parental safety net, just personal hardship. Ironically, its been the best thing that could have happened to me. I'm an independent learner and so I was ill suited for college. In startups, I get to develop highly marketable, cutting-edge skills using technologies not taught in college or used in a corporate environment. I then apply these through consulting as the market catches up and get a big fat raise from the skills I develop at each startup. Although some money from the startups would be nice, too :) Working on that.

rcoder 18y ago

It's not a question of being able to "afford" dropping out to work on a startup, so much as it's a question of what you're willing to give up to do it. My parents made less than $30k combined when I entered college in the late 90s. I dropped out after my freshman year, worked as a restaurant cashier and temp for about six months, then managed to land an entry-level media production job at a startup. Since then, I've slowly clawed my way up to a decent development gig at a major systems player in Silicon Valley, all without the benefit of a college degree, or any major financial support other than my own earnings. Even several years after I first "broke in" to the industry, however, I've had entire years where I made only a few thousand dollars. If you're willing to live in shared housing, eat a lot of cheap stir-fry and soup, and occasionally suck it up and ask a friend or family member for a couple of hundred bucks to make rent that month, you can weather some pretty drastic changes in your income. Regardless, after a decade or so of working as a developer, I've found that the lack of a college degree matters less and less. Am I less likely to be on the short list of folks to get promoted to upper management? Almost certainly. Does that bother me? Not really. I like writing code, and am happy to continue doing so until something else seems more interesting.

koningrobot 18y ago

It's not fair, but that's the way the world is. [...] perhaps we can solve this problem before our kids become adults. Alternatively, we can opt not to have kids so they don't have to deal with this problem or making a living in general at all. If the world isn't fair, why create more people that will then have to live through it?