Though I wonder, what is the best way to spend those years? Would working at and/or creating a startup at 19 better prepare the 22 year old to start a successful startup than attending college?
Of course there is more to college than just making an individual ready for a career in the real world but I think that college should evolve and find better ways to teach students than the current model.
Depends on the startup. Starting a startup will teach you more about startups, certainly. But you could end up on a local maximum. For example (this is just a conjecture of course) the Google founders might not have known enough to build Google at 19, and if they hadn't stayed in school, they might never have learned enough to.
In any case, as you say, the goal of college is not to make one a better startup founder.
I wonder if the flip side of this claim can also be true in certain cases. Could staying in college prevent one from achieving a global maximum? For example (this is just conjecture of course) Steve Jobs might have had too much debt if he finished earning a degree at Reed College, would not have been able to participate in home brew computer meetups and would have been unable to strengthen his relationship with Steve Wozniak. These factors likely would have prevented him from founding Apple.
Silicon Valley is a truly special place and I think there is a lot of value in taking a year or two off of college and try working at a startup, traveling and/or pursuing whatever else seems cool and worthwhile. Then you can decide whether returning to college is the right thing for you...
Debt is not even the biggest concern. My biggest concern is the mentality to avoid failure at all costs. Since the world's reward system isn't structured to always reward effort, school (imo) teaches you to pass, not excel. And, as I understand, the passing grade for a startup is to excel. See the disconnect?
Except for that, college years seem to be the most formative years of one's life. I wouldn't be into startups if I didn't come do post-secondary. I wouldn't even know how to code if I didn't come here. Best experience of my life.
> In any case, as you say, the goal of college is not tomake one a better startup founder.
There's the issue. College is obviously still a great way for a lot of people who don't plan to start a startup to "accidentially" learn skills and do projects that could be useful for starting a startup. Both Zuckerberg and Gates come to mind.
However, what should young people who know in their heart/mind/gut that they want to become an entrepreneur do?
I would rather spend a couple of years networking, trying and failing on a small scale in business while learning as much as possible through books/other cheap or free material than spending $30000+ on something that possibly wouldn't get me any closer to the goal.
Do you already know some of that free material, and do you spend everyday of your life learning at least a little bit more of that free material? Do you build things at a weekly rate? If not, then you should probably go to college, as you will learn a lot faster and network while inside there (given that you socialize with other dudes a lot). Maybe someone else has a different view, as I'm in Canada and don't spend as much on education so it's easier for me. -- Just saying this paragraph to people thinking about not going to college now.
Zuck and Gates were successful dropouts because they went to college and learned that it wasn't what they expected. Too much courses to take that they didn't like, classes not going fast enough, social life not as good as other people said, not much meaning in going to classes (basically fill in x reason).
Not all startups are of the internet application variety. My old boss did a startup in his late 30's, early 40's. He drew on a PhD and more than a decade of experience in wireless communications. That was a prerequisite for the type of startup he wanted to do. Heck, 19 he probably wouldn't even have known about the problem that the startup was trying to solve.
The either/or nature of your statement makes it inaccurate, as far as I'm concerned.
If you pursue an engineering degree, you are learning things that you can put to practical use, and if you don't learn some of those things in college, you will need to learn them elsewhere. Want to start a company to do machine learning? Natural language processing? Highly scalable parallel data processing? Networking can help you make that business successful, but it won't help you write that code.
For some, definitely. But if, for example, Jobs had the technical skills of Wozniak, he may have spent those critical hours hacking away at the machine instead of making smart business moves and we would have ultimately never heard of his name. The lack of strong technical skills was an asset for him.
My point is that there is nothing you can do to prepare for success. Getting your engineering degree might lead you to success, but it could just as easily steer you away from success. There is no magic formula you can follow.
I didn't make a single social connection in college. There is literally no one from my school who I know.
College, for me, was learning how to learn, mostly that I could successfuly teach myself. It also provided some rigor in critical areas (I had a great data structures prof, for instance).
Everyone has their own path, but broadly speaking I would say that avoiding social opportunities at college was not to your benefit. I, for one, learned almost nothing at college that I couldn't have picked up myself with a few hours of before-bed reading sessions. The social experience was the value.
It might depend on the college, and how it feeds into the industry you wind up in.
Mine was a Large Cow College -- the U of MD -- whose CS department seemed to feed into the Washington, DC government and defense contractor businesses. When I relocated to Silicon Valley, all of my contacts were useless.
Well, there was the Arpanet; I'd been exchanging email with some Atari enthusiasts at Stanford for a while, and wound up going to dinner and users group meetings with them a few times.
But Silly Valley was (and probably still is) a terrible place for a geek to try to learn to be social. I'll probably do a blog post about that some day.
One of the biggest benefits I've experienced while attending university is that I'm forced to learn concepts I might not otherwise expose myself to. Over my last semester I had an assembly language course which exposed me to many unique problems I wouldn't have otherwise encountered.
If I'd been learning on my own, I doubt I would have seen the value in investing a hundred hours in a language I wouldn't ever use in industry. Same goes for a number of other courses, all with varying degrees of relevance.
Take it from someone who knows: how good you are at your job matters very, very little in comparison with how much people like you as a person.
It's about mindset. Make sure that your expectations are aligned with your long-term goals. If you spend 100% of your time on training yourself in cs, then expect to be very shocked by the social dynamics of your first job. Conversely, if you spend 60% of your time focusing on becoming more social, then expect to have more friends, connections, and to connect with an overall larger number of interesting people during your lifetime.
So make sure you think about the answer to "What are my long-term goals?" and allocate your time proportionally. I didn't. I'd trade you my 10 years of advanced C++/graphics knowledge/gamedev industry experience for the college opportunity you have right now. And I wouldn't spend it by burying myself in studies.
> Take it from someone who knows: how good you are at your job matters very, very little in comparison with how much people like you as a person.
I think this is untrue simply because smart people who are good at their job are very likeable in general. Who doesn't like the smart productive guy? Conversely, who can stand the dumb guy on the team who never does any work? Of course there are exceptions, but my experience is that the social structure among nerds is largely a meritocracy. Just don't be mean to people.
If this hasn't been your experience, I think you had some misfortune by ending up in companies where politics dominate. There are both. Look at upper management - are they technically smart, or charismatic? Whichever one they are is likely what will have propagated throughout the company. Also watch out for mediocrity, that propagates too.
Of course, I'm referring to technical jobs, not business in general. If it were MBA, I'd agree with you.
I totally agree with being social at college, and being really friendly and helpful to everyone, but doing good in your studies is pretty much a guaranteed way to become good at grinding your way through things that are perhaps very boring. They are both equally important and unless you are working, you should be able to find time for both activities. Studying with classmates is also a good way to do both.
EDIT: I don't know what I replied to this comment and not your main comment about socializing at school, but w/e
> I think this is untrue simply because smart people who are good at their job are very likeable in general. Who doesn't like the smart productive guy? Conversely, who can stand the dumb guy on the team who never does any work?
I think in practice if you're in the middle 80% of the productivity spectrum, how well you interact with other people matters more than your technical ability.
You're not always just interfacing with other nerds. And in a startup context, as a founder you'll spend as much time talking to MBA types as you will on technical details.
Right, exactly. But there's many ways to form social connections. You can meet influential people in this ecosystem fairly easily. With a mix of friends of friends and just interacting on twitter or maybe hacker news and building these relationships.
At least it's worked for me. Been in SF for the last few days to have some meetings and coffees as It's hard to connect properly from London and it's been fairly good as i've spoken to lots of people in advance. People are willing to help with advice or connections, especially when you're early in your career.
Comments
Though I wonder, what is the best way to spend those years? Would working at and/or creating a startup at 19 better prepare the 22 year old to start a successful startup than attending college?
Of course there is more to college than just making an individual ready for a career in the real world but I think that college should evolve and find better ways to teach students than the current model.
Depends on the startup. Starting a startup will teach you more about startups, certainly. But you could end up on a local maximum. For example (this is just a conjecture of course) the Google founders might not have known enough to build Google at 19, and if they hadn't stayed in school, they might never have learned enough to.
In any case, as you say, the goal of college is not to make one a better startup founder.
I wonder if the flip side of this claim can also be true in certain cases. Could staying in college prevent one from achieving a global maximum? For example (this is just conjecture of course) Steve Jobs might have had too much debt if he finished earning a degree at Reed College, would not have been able to participate in home brew computer meetups and would have been unable to strengthen his relationship with Steve Wozniak. These factors likely would have prevented him from founding Apple.
Silicon Valley is a truly special place and I think there is a lot of value in taking a year or two off of college and try working at a startup, traveling and/or pursuing whatever else seems cool and worthwhile. Then you can decide whether returning to college is the right thing for you...
I think so.
Debt is not even the biggest concern. My biggest concern is the mentality to avoid failure at all costs. Since the world's reward system isn't structured to always reward effort, school (imo) teaches you to pass, not excel. And, as I understand, the passing grade for a startup is to excel. See the disconnect?
Except for that, college years seem to be the most formative years of one's life. I wouldn't be into startups if I didn't come do post-secondary. I wouldn't even know how to code if I didn't come here. Best experience of my life.
> In any case, as you say, the goal of college is not tomake one a better startup founder.
There's the issue. College is obviously still a great way for a lot of people who don't plan to start a startup to "accidentially" learn skills and do projects that could be useful for starting a startup. Both Zuckerberg and Gates come to mind.
However, what should young people who know in their heart/mind/gut that they want to become an entrepreneur do?
I would rather spend a couple of years networking, trying and failing on a small scale in business while learning as much as possible through books/other cheap or free material than spending $30000+ on something that possibly wouldn't get me any closer to the goal.
Do you already know some of that free material, and do you spend everyday of your life learning at least a little bit more of that free material? Do you build things at a weekly rate? If not, then you should probably go to college, as you will learn a lot faster and network while inside there (given that you socialize with other dudes a lot). Maybe someone else has a different view, as I'm in Canada and don't spend as much on education so it's easier for me. -- Just saying this paragraph to people thinking about not going to college now.
Zuck and Gates were successful dropouts because they went to college and learned that it wasn't what they expected. Too much courses to take that they didn't like, classes not going fast enough, social life not as good as other people said, not much meaning in going to classes (basically fill in x reason).
Not all startups are of the internet application variety. My old boss did a startup in his late 30's, early 40's. He drew on a PhD and more than a decade of experience in wireless communications. That was a prerequisite for the type of startup he wanted to do. Heck, 19 he probably wouldn't even have known about the problem that the startup was trying to solve.
College isn't about learning. It's about forming social connections.
The either/or nature of your statement makes it inaccurate, as far as I'm concerned.
If you pursue an engineering degree, you are learning things that you can put to practical use, and if you don't learn some of those things in college, you will need to learn them elsewhere. Want to start a company to do machine learning? Natural language processing? Highly scalable parallel data processing? Networking can help you make that business successful, but it won't help you write that code.
Both skill sets are important.
Both skill sets are important.
For some, definitely. But if, for example, Jobs had the technical skills of Wozniak, he may have spent those critical hours hacking away at the machine instead of making smart business moves and we would have ultimately never heard of his name. The lack of strong technical skills was an asset for him.
My point is that there is nothing you can do to prepare for success. Getting your engineering degree might lead you to success, but it could just as easily steer you away from success. There is no magic formula you can follow.
I didn't make a single social connection in college. There is literally no one from my school who I know.
College, for me, was learning how to learn, mostly that I could successfuly teach myself. It also provided some rigor in critical areas (I had a great data structures prof, for instance).
Oh, and I'm a dropout. :-)
Everyone has their own path, but broadly speaking I would say that avoiding social opportunities at college was not to your benefit. I, for one, learned almost nothing at college that I couldn't have picked up myself with a few hours of before-bed reading sessions. The social experience was the value.
It might depend on the college, and how it feeds into the industry you wind up in.
Mine was a Large Cow College -- the U of MD -- whose CS department seemed to feed into the Washington, DC government and defense contractor businesses. When I relocated to Silicon Valley, all of my contacts were useless.
Well, there was the Arpanet; I'd been exchanging email with some Atari enthusiasts at Stanford for a while, and wound up going to dinner and users group meetings with them a few times.
But Silly Valley was (and probably still is) a terrible place for a geek to try to learn to be social. I'll probably do a blog post about that some day.
One of the biggest benefits I've experienced while attending university is that I'm forced to learn concepts I might not otherwise expose myself to. Over my last semester I had an assembly language course which exposed me to many unique problems I wouldn't have otherwise encountered.
If I'd been learning on my own, I doubt I would have seen the value in investing a hundred hours in a language I wouldn't ever use in industry. Same goes for a number of other courses, all with varying degrees of relevance.
As someone who just switched majors to cs after not being exposed to it in high school, the learning part of college is pretty important to me.
Take it from someone who knows: how good you are at your job matters very, very little in comparison with how much people like you as a person.
It's about mindset. Make sure that your expectations are aligned with your long-term goals. If you spend 100% of your time on training yourself in cs, then expect to be very shocked by the social dynamics of your first job. Conversely, if you spend 60% of your time focusing on becoming more social, then expect to have more friends, connections, and to connect with an overall larger number of interesting people during your lifetime.
So make sure you think about the answer to "What are my long-term goals?" and allocate your time proportionally. I didn't. I'd trade you my 10 years of advanced C++/graphics knowledge/gamedev industry experience for the college opportunity you have right now. And I wouldn't spend it by burying myself in studies.
> Take it from someone who knows: how good you are at your job matters very, very little in comparison with how much people like you as a person.
I think this is untrue simply because smart people who are good at their job are very likeable in general. Who doesn't like the smart productive guy? Conversely, who can stand the dumb guy on the team who never does any work? Of course there are exceptions, but my experience is that the social structure among nerds is largely a meritocracy. Just don't be mean to people.
If this hasn't been your experience, I think you had some misfortune by ending up in companies where politics dominate. There are both. Look at upper management - are they technically smart, or charismatic? Whichever one they are is likely what will have propagated throughout the company. Also watch out for mediocrity, that propagates too.
Of course, I'm referring to technical jobs, not business in general. If it were MBA, I'd agree with you.
> If this hasn't been your experience, I think you had some misfortune by ending up in companies where politics dominate.
I totally agree with being social at college, and being really friendly and helpful to everyone, but doing good in your studies is pretty much a guaranteed way to become good at grinding your way through things that are perhaps very boring. They are both equally important and unless you are working, you should be able to find time for both activities. Studying with classmates is also a good way to do both.
EDIT: I don't know what I replied to this comment and not your main comment about socializing at school, but w/e
> I think this is untrue simply because smart people who are good at their job are very likeable in general. Who doesn't like the smart productive guy? Conversely, who can stand the dumb guy on the team who never does any work?
I think in practice if you're in the middle 80% of the productivity spectrum, how well you interact with other people matters more than your technical ability.
You're not always just interfacing with other nerds. And in a startup context, as a founder you'll spend as much time talking to MBA types as you will on technical details.
In terms of start ups I found start up related coworking and events far better for making any useful connections than in college.
Right, exactly. But there's many ways to form social connections. You can meet influential people in this ecosystem fairly easily. With a mix of friends of friends and just interacting on twitter or maybe hacker news and building these relationships.
At least it's worked for me. Been in SF for the last few days to have some meetings and coffees as It's hard to connect properly from London and it's been fairly good as i've spoken to lots of people in advance. People are willing to help with advice or connections, especially when you're early in your career.
Not everyone becomes a successful startup founder. Most people work as employees and not graduating will put a sever dent on their career prospects.