Can you do independent study to finish high school? Don't drop out and don't do GED. Either will put you in such a low educational caste it may be hard to break out of later in life. Finish, get a real diploma for the reasons everyone has already stated. Think of yourself as a guerrilla warrior and right now you're biding your time and building strength.
It sounds like you aim to be the CEO type. If that's the case, you've got to train yourself to be a CEO. No one is going to do it for you, at least not if you're an entrepreneur. A CEO wears a lot of hats, but mostly a CEO is a salesman, especially in a startup. So learn about that and get good at it, even if it means you take a job selling someone else's crap for a few months just to know what that's like.
Yes, you definitely should learn to program to the point where you can build real things. It's not hard. If it seems hard try a new language or technology, or find a mentor. A CEO needs a pretty good bullshit detector, so having some tech knowledge is critical if you're doing a tech startup.
One final thing: People often emphasize that failure is ok and that is how you learn and find your weaknesses and build strength. All of which is true. But you get to choose your failures, probably more so than your successes. Make sure the projects you pick will teach you valuable things and let you make a lot of contacts. You'd be amazed how many happy coincidences happen when you just happen to have learned some unique thing or you just happen to know so-and-so from the last project you worked on.
Comments
Can you do independent study to finish high school? Don't drop out and don't do GED. Either will put you in such a low educational caste it may be hard to break out of later in life. Finish, get a real diploma for the reasons everyone has already stated. Think of yourself as a guerrilla warrior and right now you're biding your time and building strength.
It sounds like you aim to be the CEO type. If that's the case, you've got to train yourself to be a CEO. No one is going to do it for you, at least not if you're an entrepreneur. A CEO wears a lot of hats, but mostly a CEO is a salesman, especially in a startup. So learn about that and get good at it, even if it means you take a job selling someone else's crap for a few months just to know what that's like.
Yes, you definitely should learn to program to the point where you can build real things. It's not hard. If it seems hard try a new language or technology, or find a mentor. A CEO needs a pretty good bullshit detector, so having some tech knowledge is critical if you're doing a tech startup.
One final thing: People often emphasize that failure is ok and that is how you learn and find your weaknesses and build strength. All of which is true. But you get to choose your failures, probably more so than your successes. Make sure the projects you pick will teach you valuable things and let you make a lot of contacts. You'd be amazed how many happy coincidences happen when you just happen to have learned some unique thing or you just happen to know so-and-so from the last project you worked on.