4 ms·

It's a good post, but I think the success of ycombinator speaks against your concept of "made founders" as a common thing. I will agree though, they definitely

It's a good post, but I think the success of ycombinator speaks against your concept of "made founders" as a common thing. I will agree though, they definitely exist and they definitely suck. (Born into it? No, I think they worked their ass off into ivy league university, but now feel they can coast .. which is understandable, it's hell getting into Ivy league universities. To imagine that you now have to sacrifice the next phase of your life probably too much to bear for most)

michaelochurch 11y ago
It's hell getting into Ivy League universities for middle class people. Rich kids from well-connected families take it for granted. Why do you think parents in New York pay $40,000 per year from pre-school to high school? Because you're an auto-admit at many of the Ivies (Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are still a reach unless you're top-25%, but there's always Stanford) if you attend one of the top 5 prep high schools. Also, Ivy League is one of the less important elements of pedigree. Pedigreed (read: well-connected, not necessarily well-educated and certainly not cultured) people who don't go to elite schools still have their advantages. Also, the middle-class smart kids and the pedigreed legacy kids tend not to mix at elite schools anyway. A prestigious university provides a bump, but not as much as one thinks. It's not like going to Harvard makes you set for life. I know Harvard grads making $50k as social media whatevers at dipshit ed-tech startups. Middle-class people tend to overestimate the connections-forming capacity of college. It certainly happens, but the tendency for 18- to 21-year-olds (well, everyone, but especially adolescents) is for like to group with like and that means that the middle-class smart kids and the dumbasses-with-family-connections don't mix.
- gull 11y ago
  > It's hell getting into Ivy League universities for middle class people. Corollary: On the Internet no one knows you are a dog.

michaelochurch 11y ago

It's hell getting into Ivy League universities for middle class people. Rich kids from well-connected families take it for granted. Why do you think parents in New York pay $40,000 per year from pre-school to high school? Because you're an auto-admit at many of the Ivies (Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are still a reach unless you're top-25%, but there's always Stanford) if you attend one of the top 5 prep high schools. Also, Ivy League is one of the less important elements of pedigree. Pedigreed (read: well-connected, not necessarily well-educated and certainly not cultured) people who don't go to elite schools still have their advantages. Also, the middle-class smart kids and the pedigreed legacy kids tend not to mix at elite schools anyway. A prestigious university provides a bump, but not as much as one thinks. It's not like going to Harvard makes you set for life. I know Harvard grads making $50k as social media whatevers at dipshit ed-tech startups. Middle-class people tend to overestimate the connections-forming capacity of college. It certainly happens, but the tendency for 18- to 21-year-olds (well, everyone, but especially adolescents) is for like to group with like and that means that the middle-class smart kids and the dumbasses-with-family-connections don't mix.

gull 11y ago
> It's hell getting into Ivy League universities for middle class people. Corollary: On the Internet no one knows you are a dog.