As other people have mentioned, doing well in college is more about learning a lot and doing research than getting good grades. With this in mind, I think doin

As other people have mentioned, doing well in college is more about learning a lot and doing research than getting good grades. With this in mind, I think doing well in college can be important for a couple of reasons: 1) You should try to learn as much as you can. 2) Grad school. If you decide you want to go to grad school, it's important to have good grades and more importantly research experience. 3) Employment. Grades / research experience may not matter for a startup, but I think it does help with getting your foot in the door with big tech companies like Microsoft, Google, etc. Only 1) matters as far as start ups are concerned, but it's good to keep options open. Your interests may change (I'm only 23, and my interests have changed a few times already).