25 ms·

The Pernicious Myth that You Don't Need College to Be an Entrepreneur

40 points by tokenadult 13y ago

PythonDeveloper 13y ago
You should tell that to Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company, who couldn't even read, or Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, or any of the multitude of successful CEOs who never graduated college. Anyone who thinks you need a college education to be an entrepreneur, clearly doesn't know what being an entrepreneur means.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
dreamdu5t 13y ago
No, the pernicious myth is that college is necessarily worth the money. It's on par with the myth that home ownership is necessarily A Good Thing (tm) and an "investment."
- tokenizer 13y ago
  Yup, add to the fact that the author is an academic (Adjunct/Research Associate/Vice President). No bias there I assume...
fleitz 13y ago
Entreprenuer does not mean running a venture funded startup in hopes of editing for $1bn plus.
benjohnson 13y ago
Sure...perhaps pulling kids out of top tier schools may not necessarily be ideal. But for the rest of us rabble, I'm sure glad I'm not struggling under $100,000 in debt. Perhaps it's by design - America needs a docile workforce, and nothing gets you working diligently in a marginal job quite like crushing debt.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- integraton 13y ago
  There are plenty of ways to go to top tier schools without taking on debt. A creative combination of scholarships, transfers, income, and employer benefits can take care of everything. Among the failures of the system is the excessive emphasis on the traditional four year path, as well as the lack of clear information about the alternatives.
ianstallings 13y ago
And if you have entrepreneurship in your blood you'll probably ignore this. Because they don't teach how to be "insanely driven" at school. If you have the opportunity to go to college I say go for it, finish and get your degree. But those that don't have the means or opportunity are in no way disqualified from starting a successful business. I think the takeaway from this shouldn't be that college is necessary, but that you shouldn't drop out just to start a business. But again, you probably won't listen to that either. My family taught me how to start and run a business long before college entered my mind. It's in my blood. I've started them before, one worked and two others did not. I've helped others start their own and some were successful, others not. And I will start another one eventually. When I choose to do something nothing in the world will stop me. Because that's what I think it takes.
- coldtea 13y ago
  >Because they don't teach how to be "insanely driven" at school. No. But, then again, there are thousands of wrecks that were "insanely driven" and got nowhere. Besides being "insanely driven" it's not a bad idea to also actually learn how to drive.
  - adventured 13y ago
    I don't know very many people that became good drivers by reading a car manual or a book at drivers ed. I'd argue the best way to learn how to drive, is to drive. Almost everybody I know started out driving that way, on a safe road somewhere or in a parking lot, with their parents or similar. Not by reading a book about it.
    - coldtea 13y ago
      >I don't know very many people that became good drivers by reading a car manual or a book at drivers ed. That's because driving a car is an active endeavour that you learn by driving along your instructor. The problem with your analogy is two-fold: 1) It's not like college is just about "reading books". You get to do a lot of hands-on stuff, participate in projects, do exersizes and labs etc. All those have a much wider scope and breadth that what you'd learn from a hands-on approach just on a specific problem on some startup. 2) It's also not true that all fields are about "trying it out". You won't learn calculus, linear algebra, OS internals or complexity just because you chanced upon a small real-life problem working as an intern and you googled your way out or came up with your own hacky solution. Some stuff you need to actually study, that is go through the bibliography, read past and present ideas and notions, etc. In college you get to do that without obstractions like "we need to ship next week", for numerous study subjects, and with guidance offered to boot.
dkokelley 13y ago
What in this article demonstrates that you do or don't need a college education to be an entrepreneur (presumably a successful one)? The evidence as provided seems to be, "Most of Peter Thiel's college-abstainers are failing, and the few successes shouldn't really count." I feel like a lot more work needs to be put into this article before it's fit to be published. What is the central point of this post? From what I could tell, it's roughly a mix of: - Kids should stay in college - Peter Thiel is doing a disservice to the college-aged - Entrepreneurs who go to college are more successful - Peter Thiel's program isn't as successful at TechStars (because he exclusively selects college abstainers) - College dropouts earn less (regardless of career choice) than degree holders Pick one, and then find data that is relevant. Even better, pick a central point and turn it in to a hypothesis. Gather data and test the hypothesis. Write an article about the findings. I really expect better from PBS.
- randomdata 13y ago
  What is considered a Peter Thiel failure even? Someone coming into a program like HN and not realizing net profits towards millions of dollars would be considered a failure in that circle, but even a profit of $50,000 per year would be enough to see the participants earning more than the average college graduate.
tokenizer 13y ago
>""He tells the story of a high school teacher whose students confronted him with the same question: "Why do we need to learn this?" The teacher replied, "You don't. You need to learn to ask just one question." The piqued students implored him to tell what that was. His answer: "Would you like fries with that?"" This is deplorable. As someone who didn't go to college, the fact that the author acts like they're right because of the status quo, and because Thiel's first start-ups weren't successful is absolutely laughable. I love how their main argument relies on the fact that the perception of the degree is what's most important. While this may be true, this is simply a perception, and can easily be changed. It's not a "fact". Secondly, if Thiel's lack of success from his ventures proves anything, it's that he needs work finding the right people to invest in. Just because a small subset of adventurous young adults failed their first time (understandable) doesn't mean that all young adults need the experience of college before they can fail/succeed in their first venture. Lastly, let's see if the author is bias. Well, they're an academic, are adjuncts in two colleges... I find it interesting that an Academic intellectual has a problem understanding that people can be didactic learners and learn what they want on their own. "Would you like fries with that?" - Sure, I'd love to buy some fries with my great job that I got right out of high school because I ACTUALLY worked towards my craft in high school. I doubt you can do that with an English, Psychology, Sociology, or even a regular Science degree. What this really sounds like is that college is important if you want to become an engineer. That's obvious. Most other things? Not so much.
- sp332 13y ago
  http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm Unemployment literally doubles if you forgo a college degree.
  - aantix 13y ago
    Doubles, what, if you do nothing but what everyone else is doing (pursue the same jobs, etc). Thiel is presenting an alternative for those who dare. Find something you love, submerge yourself in it, and try to make a business of it. Worse case scenario you fail, but you then have a world of managerial, technical and fundraising experience that you can take on to the next idea you dream of. Some people are gifted do'ers, some are just gifted learners. For the former, why delay your skillset learning in an artificial college environment?
dnautics 13y ago
"He paid children $100,000 not to complete their college educations." No. He paid "children" $100,000 to put off their college educations for two years, and be open-minded about not ever going back. If I recall correctly, some of the thiel fellows had already finished college.
austenallred 13y ago
Interesting article, considering I dropped out of school yesterday (literally). The reason I dropped out isn't because I'm lazy or incompetent; I'm actually 30 credits (two semesters) away from graduation. But as I look at what my class schedule would be, I realize that the bubble they're trying to force me into takes me a different direction than where I really want to go. I don't think I could handle the cognitive dissonance of that realization day after day. I love technology and mass media, and I want to go into Internet marketing - I've worked in Internet marketing for five years, so I ended up in the communications department, which was perfect. The program was great - we would discuss how media is changing, work on being creative, study design, understand why people do the things they do; it was great. But then, after my 2nd year, it got specific to make sure we could get a job at an advertising agency - to make sure we stay the 2nd best school in the nation for advertising. And now I look at my class schedule of the classes I have to take to graduate. Advanced account management? A forced internship (when I've been working in Internet marketing for five years)? Writing 150? (I tested out of that with two different AP tests and my ACT score, but it's required in the Commms program no matter what.) What college wants me to do to ensure I get a job just isn't relevant enough to what I want to learn or where I want to end up. Not to mention the fact that the company I'm a co-founder of has investors begging me to drop out of school and go full-time... it's just not a good fit. It just doesn't make sense. I'm designing my own curriculum around the things that I want to learn. It's difficult to do and will be hard to force myself to do those things, but at least it's relevant to where I want to go.
- tsunamifury 13y ago
  I would remind you that copy writing is critical to advertising and the basic tenants they are teaching you aren't that different. You still need to manage leads, create conversions, follow up. You need to understand the difference between brand and product marketing and learn what it means to have a target market. You need to learn to read and do meaningful analysis on analytics using methods that aren't immediately obvious. You need to learn a whole host of things I cant even list here because I didn't get a degree in marketing.
  - austenallred 13y ago
saalweachter 13y ago
Random thought of the day: I don't see any mention in this article of "social networks". Even if an entrepreneur can be smart and driven, can learn a wide array of technical skills on his own, if he is literally on his own he is going to be at a serious disadvantage. Some people acquire a network of cofounders, lawyers, and financiers through their parents' social networks, and some people can acquire them online or off with no help, but maybe, maybe if you're a smart, driven individual with no pre-existing social network, it might be worthwhile to go to college to meet that special someone you could settle down and start a company with?
- nwhitehead 13y ago
  Colleges and universities are great places to do projects with people and build social networks. Doesn't require paying tuition!
andrewflnr 13y ago
Nothing in this article proves anything about whether you need to go to college. If anything, it indicates that Peter Thiel may have picked the wrong kids for his experiment.
- lmickh 13y ago
  While the article certainly lacks hard proof, the "he didn't pick the right kids" argument is even worse. The ratio of successful college grads to non-grads may not show causality, but at least it is some sort of metric. Until someone can quantify "the right kids", it beats the alternative.
jbcurtin2 13y ago
The title of the article is skewing everything. He's making an observation on the environments individuals are in. The gist, surround yourself with competent people or goto an institution that will help you find people to do this. This is what college is. A place to find like minded people. Ignore the rest.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
dgabriel 13y ago
"Children"? Who refers to 18-22 year old men and women as children? The terminally condescending?
opendais 13y ago
We really need our academics to focus on teaching people [before they get out of highschool] useful skills [critical thinking, for instance] instead of picking fights with people over a given ideology [e.g. Thiel who holds a belief/theory he is trying to prove which can only be proven once he has a preponderance of evidence/success on his side]. For instance, how to calculate the ROI of any purchase they make whether that is a college degree, a stock, or a house. College makes sense for many people in many fields. A bunch of people get suckered into degrees from for-profit schools that aren't worth their price because they read articles like these and think 'college == superior' without thinking critically about the problem.
ufmace 13y ago
Interesting story. In these sorts of discussions, people always bring up, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerburg, etc. I don't know the details about most of them, but I do remember reading that Bill Gates' parents' money and position allowed him to spend a tremendous amount of time programming computers in an era when this was incredibly rare and expensive. Perhaps college was pointless for him, but that's in large part because of his drive and access to resources that few people have. Is it pointless for you, or some other person? Well, have you spent most of high school aggressively pursuing every opportunity you could find to learn some sort of craft or business?
vinceguidry 13y ago
This reads more like a defensive rant than a legitimate argument. Nothing insightful here.
mindcrime 13y ago
A(nother) problem with this discussion, is that Wadhwa and others seem to create a dichotomy where you either: 1. Graduate from a University with a B.S or 2. Are an uneducated bum with no career prospects. But there's a huge continuum between those poles. What about people with Associate degrees? Or people who start their Bachelors program, almost finish, and then drop out? Or people who start their Bachelors program, after having earned one Associate degree, then drop out, then go on to earn 2 more Associate degrees? (Yeah, that one happens, that was my story). Of course, while I disagree with Wadhwa on a number of things, I don't entirely disagree with his notion that finishing school is important for most people, in most situations. But I think you have to be willing to accept that it's not the right path for everybody, in every situation. I dropped out while still a junior, and my career has worked out pretty well. But I also somehow collected 3 Associate degrees over the years as well, and I went into a field (software development) that is known for being less focused on "paper credentials". So my point certainly isn't that everybody should do what I did, but just to say that these things are always judgment calls and that some people are well served by dropping out. As for the entrepreneurship part... I've founded a startup, but it's undetermined as of yet if we'll be one of the successes or not. But I think it's interesting that some people[1] are mentioning us in the same breath as companies like Asana now, even though they were started by Facebook alums and people from Google and Microsoft, while we were founded by a college dropout with no connections or money to speak of. We may not succeed, but we've at least managed to fight out way into the game to some extent. [1]: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/09/04/companies-linkedin-should-buy.html http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/09/04/companies...

40 points by tokenadult 13y ago

You should tell that to Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company, who couldn't even read, or Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, or any of the multitude of successful CEOs who never graduated college. Anyone who thinks you need a college education to be an entrepreneur, clearly doesn't know what being an entrepreneur means.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

dreamdu5t 13y ago

No, the pernicious myth is that college is necessarily worth the money. It's on par with the myth that home ownership is necessarily A Good Thing (tm) and an "investment."

tokenizer 13y ago
Yup, add to the fact that the author is an academic (Adjunct/Research Associate/Vice President). No bias there I assume...

fleitz 13y ago

Entreprenuer does not mean running a venture funded startup in hopes of editing for $1bn plus.

benjohnson 13y ago

Sure...perhaps pulling kids out of top tier schools may not necessarily be ideal. But for the rest of us rabble, I'm sure glad I'm not struggling under $100,000 in debt. Perhaps it's by design - America needs a docile workforce, and nothing gets you working diligently in a marginal job quite like crushing debt.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
integraton 13y ago
There are plenty of ways to go to top tier schools without taking on debt. A creative combination of scholarships, transfers, income, and employer benefits can take care of everything. Among the failures of the system is the excessive emphasis on the traditional four year path, as well as the lack of clear information about the alternatives.

ianstallings 13y ago

And if you have entrepreneurship in your blood you'll probably ignore this. Because they don't teach how to be "insanely driven" at school. If you have the opportunity to go to college I say go for it, finish and get your degree. But those that don't have the means or opportunity are in no way disqualified from starting a successful business. I think the takeaway from this shouldn't be that college is necessary, but that you shouldn't drop out just to start a business. But again, you probably won't listen to that either. My family taught me how to start and run a business long before college entered my mind. It's in my blood. I've started them before, one worked and two others did not. I've helped others start their own and some were successful, others not. And I will start another one eventually. When I choose to do something nothing in the world will stop me. Because that's what I think it takes.

coldtea 13y ago
>Because they don't teach how to be "insanely driven" at school. No. But, then again, there are thousands of wrecks that were "insanely driven" and got nowhere. Besides being "insanely driven" it's not a bad idea to also actually learn how to drive.
- adventured 13y ago
  I don't know very many people that became good drivers by reading a car manual or a book at drivers ed. I'd argue the best way to learn how to drive, is to drive. Almost everybody I know started out driving that way, on a safe road somewhere or in a parking lot, with their parents or similar. Not by reading a book about it.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >I don't know very many people that became good drivers by reading a car manual or a book at drivers ed. That's because driving a car is an active endeavour that you learn by driving along your instructor. The problem with your analogy is two-fold: 1) It's not like college is just about "reading books". You get to do a lot of hands-on stuff, participate in projects, do exersizes and labs etc. All those have a much wider scope and breadth that what you'd learn from a hands-on approach just on a specific problem on some startup. 2) It's also not true that all fields are about "trying it out". You won't learn calculus, linear algebra, OS internals or complexity just because you chanced upon a small real-life problem working as an intern and you googled your way out or came up with your own hacky solution. Some stuff you need to actually study, that is go through the bibliography, read past and present ideas and notions, etc. In college you get to do that without obstractions like "we need to ship next week", for numerous study subjects, and with guidance offered to boot.

dkokelley 13y ago

What in this article demonstrates that you do or don't need a college education to be an entrepreneur (presumably a successful one)? The evidence as provided seems to be, "Most of Peter Thiel's college-abstainers are failing, and the few successes shouldn't really count." I feel like a lot more work needs to be put into this article before it's fit to be published. What is the central point of this post? From what I could tell, it's roughly a mix of: - Kids should stay in college - Peter Thiel is doing a disservice to the college-aged - Entrepreneurs who go to college are more successful - Peter Thiel's program isn't as successful at TechStars (because he exclusively selects college abstainers) - College dropouts earn less (regardless of career choice) than degree holders Pick one, and then find data that is relevant. Even better, pick a central point and turn it in to a hypothesis. Gather data and test the hypothesis. Write an article about the findings. I really expect better from PBS.

randomdata 13y ago
What is considered a Peter Thiel failure even? Someone coming into a program like HN and not realizing net profits towards millions of dollars would be considered a failure in that circle, but even a profit of $50,000 per year would be enough to see the participants earning more than the average college graduate.

tokenizer 13y ago

>""He tells the story of a high school teacher whose students confronted him with the same question: "Why do we need to learn this?" The teacher replied, "You don't. You need to learn to ask just one question." The piqued students implored him to tell what that was. His answer: "Would you like fries with that?"" This is deplorable. As someone who didn't go to college, the fact that the author acts like they're right because of the status quo, and because Thiel's first start-ups weren't successful is absolutely laughable. I love how their main argument relies on the fact that the perception of the degree is what's most important. While this may be true, this is simply a perception, and can easily be changed. It's not a "fact". Secondly, if Thiel's lack of success from his ventures proves anything, it's that he needs work finding the right people to invest in. Just because a small subset of adventurous young adults failed their first time (understandable) doesn't mean that all young adults need the experience of college before they can fail/succeed in their first venture. Lastly, let's see if the author is bias. Well, they're an academic, are adjuncts in two colleges... I find it interesting that an Academic intellectual has a problem understanding that people can be didactic learners and learn what they want on their own. "Would you like fries with that?" - Sure, I'd love to buy some fries with my great job that I got right out of high school because I ACTUALLY worked towards my craft in high school. I doubt you can do that with an English, Psychology, Sociology, or even a regular Science degree. What this really sounds like is that college is important if you want to become an engineer. That's obvious. Most other things? Not so much.

sp332 13y ago
http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm Unemployment literally doubles if you forgo a college degree.
- aantix 13y ago
  Doubles, what, if you do nothing but what everyone else is doing (pursue the same jobs, etc). Thiel is presenting an alternative for those who dare. Find something you love, submerge yourself in it, and try to make a business of it. Worse case scenario you fail, but you then have a world of managerial, technical and fundraising experience that you can take on to the next idea you dream of. Some people are gifted do'ers, some are just gifted learners. For the former, why delay your skillset learning in an artificial college environment?

dnautics 13y ago

"He paid children $100,000 not to complete their college educations." No. He paid "children" $100,000 to put off their college educations for two years, and be open-minded about not ever going back. If I recall correctly, some of the thiel fellows had already finished college.

austenallred 13y ago

Interesting article, considering I dropped out of school yesterday (literally). The reason I dropped out isn't because I'm lazy or incompetent; I'm actually 30 credits (two semesters) away from graduation. But as I look at what my class schedule would be, I realize that the bubble they're trying to force me into takes me a different direction than where I really want to go. I don't think I could handle the cognitive dissonance of that realization day after day. I love technology and mass media, and I want to go into Internet marketing - I've worked in Internet marketing for five years, so I ended up in the communications department, which was perfect. The program was great - we would discuss how media is changing, work on being creative, study design, understand why people do the things they do; it was great. But then, after my 2nd year, it got specific to make sure we could get a job at an advertising agency - to make sure we stay the 2nd best school in the nation for advertising. And now I look at my class schedule of the classes I have to take to graduate. Advanced account management? A forced internship (when I've been working in Internet marketing for five years)? Writing 150? (I tested out of that with two different AP tests and my ACT score, but it's required in the Commms program no matter what.) What college wants me to do to ensure I get a job just isn't relevant enough to what I want to learn or where I want to end up. Not to mention the fact that the company I'm a co-founder of has investors begging me to drop out of school and go full-time... it's just not a good fit. It just doesn't make sense. I'm designing my own curriculum around the things that I want to learn. It's difficult to do and will be hard to force myself to do those things, but at least it's relevant to where I want to go.

tsunamifury 13y ago
I would remind you that copy writing is critical to advertising and the basic tenants they are teaching you aren't that different. You still need to manage leads, create conversions, follow up. You need to understand the difference between brand and product marketing and learn what it means to have a target market. You need to learn to read and do meaningful analysis on analytics using methods that aren't immediately obvious. You need to learn a whole host of things I cant even list here because I didn't get a degree in marketing.
- austenallred 13y ago

saalweachter 13y ago

Random thought of the day: I don't see any mention in this article of "social networks". Even if an entrepreneur can be smart and driven, can learn a wide array of technical skills on his own, if he is literally on his own he is going to be at a serious disadvantage. Some people acquire a network of cofounders, lawyers, and financiers through their parents' social networks, and some people can acquire them online or off with no help, but maybe, maybe if you're a smart, driven individual with no pre-existing social network, it might be worthwhile to go to college to meet that special someone you could settle down and start a company with?

nwhitehead 13y ago
Colleges and universities are great places to do projects with people and build social networks. Doesn't require paying tuition!

andrewflnr 13y ago

Nothing in this article proves anything about whether you need to go to college. If anything, it indicates that Peter Thiel may have picked the wrong kids for his experiment.

lmickh 13y ago
While the article certainly lacks hard proof, the "he didn't pick the right kids" argument is even worse. The ratio of successful college grads to non-grads may not show causality, but at least it is some sort of metric. Until someone can quantify "the right kids", it beats the alternative.

jbcurtin2 13y ago

The title of the article is skewing everything. He's making an observation on the environments individuals are in. The gist, surround yourself with competent people or goto an institution that will help you find people to do this. This is what college is. A place to find like minded people. Ignore the rest.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

dgabriel 13y ago

"Children"? Who refers to 18-22 year old men and women as children? The terminally condescending?

opendais 13y ago

We really need our academics to focus on teaching people [before they get out of highschool] useful skills [critical thinking, for instance] instead of picking fights with people over a given ideology [e.g. Thiel who holds a belief/theory he is trying to prove which can only be proven once he has a preponderance of evidence/success on his side]. For instance, how to calculate the ROI of any purchase they make whether that is a college degree, a stock, or a house. College makes sense for many people in many fields. A bunch of people get suckered into degrees from for-profit schools that aren't worth their price because they read articles like these and think 'college == superior' without thinking critically about the problem.

ufmace 13y ago

Interesting story. In these sorts of discussions, people always bring up, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerburg, etc. I don't know the details about most of them, but I do remember reading that Bill Gates' parents' money and position allowed him to spend a tremendous amount of time programming computers in an era when this was incredibly rare and expensive. Perhaps college was pointless for him, but that's in large part because of his drive and access to resources that few people have. Is it pointless for you, or some other person? Well, have you spent most of high school aggressively pursuing every opportunity you could find to learn some sort of craft or business?

vinceguidry 13y ago

This reads more like a defensive rant than a legitimate argument. Nothing insightful here.

mindcrime 13y ago

A(nother) problem with this discussion, is that Wadhwa and others seem to create a dichotomy where you either: 1. Graduate from a University with a B.S or 2. Are an uneducated bum with no career prospects. But there's a huge continuum between those poles. What about people with Associate degrees? Or people who start their Bachelors program, almost finish, and then drop out? Or people who start their Bachelors program, after having earned one Associate degree, then drop out, then go on to earn 2 more Associate degrees? (Yeah, that one happens, that was my story). Of course, while I disagree with Wadhwa on a number of things, I don't entirely disagree with his notion that finishing school is important for most people, in most situations. But I think you have to be willing to accept that it's not the right path for everybody, in every situation. I dropped out while still a junior, and my career has worked out pretty well. But I also somehow collected 3 Associate degrees over the years as well, and I went into a field (software development) that is known for being less focused on "paper credentials". So my point certainly isn't that everybody should do what I did, but just to say that these things are always judgment calls and that some people are well served by dropping out. As for the entrepreneurship part... I've founded a startup, but it's undetermined as of yet if we'll be one of the successes or not. But I think it's interesting that some people[1] are mentioning us in the same breath as companies like Asana now, even though they were started by Facebook alums and people from Google and Microsoft, while we were founded by a college dropout with no connections or money to speak of. We may not succeed, but we've at least managed to fight out way into the game to some extent. [1]: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/09/04/companies-linkedin-should-buy.html http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/09/04/companies...