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Putting everyone on the same "go-to-college" track seems opposite of agile and innovative, unless we're calling trade schools and fashion design schools and horticulture institutes and ____ *colleges*.
And there's a second issue: "graduates from high school" used to be the lofty goal, but it seems that since so many schools are now perceived to be ...well, lousy, we're upping the ante to "graduates from college."
Which makes me wonder if we're just transferring the problem of not-so-great high school experiences to the college level. Maybe we should think instead about the user, er, I mean the student, and find out what works best for him/her - not help the user/student find yet another track to go down, but, in the words of Kathy Sierra, help the user/ student kick ass.
I'll go back and check
But your point is spot on
Ah, thanks, that makes a bit more sense. But, yeah, still... ;-)
The best way to make sure that whomever wants to attend college can is to
lower the cost and increase the availability of a "college education"
Online learning can do so much in this area
Your second issue: Nothing wrong with raising the bar. High school is boring for most teenagers (hence the collectively poor performance) which indicates untapped potential and intelligence, in my humble opinion.
To your last point: HERE HERE!! User experience is relevant in ALL organizations. Only the best ones get that. Agreed!
I am currently busy working on a couple projects, including a Mac app and a few different sites. I have been working online for the past 3 years (mostly freelance writing - and in the last year direct ad sales/internet marketing and now freelance SEO work) and know what it takes to make a living.
I have been floating it in my head about going back to school, but I don't see the immediate reward. I do enjoy learning, but I like to teach myself or learn from others close to me (local meetups with other entrepreneurs, sites like Hacker News, etc).
I've also had a couple interviews, and have a few more coming up, in regards to working at local startups/web companies (some are internships, others start at about $40k/yr Canadian).
At this point in my life, f**k school. I may go back one day, but for now I'm going to gamble. If I fall on my ass I'm still 17 and live at home - no problem starting over.
I'm not going to list my email here (hate spam) - but I'm at http://twitter.com/yurechko - I'm following you so you can always DM me, thanks :)
Do you have a linkedin profile?
http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelyurechko
Thanks again!
I hope something comes of it
It may sound weird, but what do think? Is it a good idea? Just wanted to know your response. I will appreciated it and perhaps make me feel a bit more certain ;)
Thanks
Plus - there are lots of smart people with ambitions similar to yours. College is a great place to meet them...
I connect in person with a lot of other entrepreneurs locally, meetups, grabbing coffee, etc. I'm not denying that college would be beneficial, it's just that in the time I would need to upgrade my marks to get into college I could be hustling, working on my projects, meeting new people and everything else.
All I'm saying is that college isn't the right thing for me at this exact moment in my life. Maybe I'll change my mind in a year.. who knows?
I'm not advocating that college will make smart people that have no drive, but in your case, I'm just nervous that you may end up like a few entrepreneurs I have seen: a diamond in the rough.
It's great to have a high opinion of yourself ("I'm too good for college"). I was a genius once too (or so I thought). And then I expanded my horizons and now I know better.
I just don't think it's the right thing for me at this point in time. And as I said in my comment, I may change my mind in a year. I was looking at some local colleges today and saw some web application development courses that I'm interested in taking (mostly for pleasure).
Let me tell you my story. If you relate to it, maybe you can use some of it to your advantage.
I graduated from high school at 16. I was a nationally published author of software at the time. I was so far ahead of any computer education that undergrad college could provide, it was pretty clear that college would be just a long, painful repetition of stuff I already knew.
For a large part, it was. All the technical details of programming, I already knew better than the professor. But somehow, I matured.
Skip forward 10 years. College was a very useful experience. It only improved my programming marginally (what you'd call Internet skills). I successfully argued with my professor that dynamic languages are a mistatake (he invented them :-).
But somehow I learned a lot. About people, about projects, about dealing with others, etc.
Are you sure you have all those skills? My best advice: pursue both your own ventures in parallel with college. Don't just be an average student who shows up for classes and does little else. But unless you are the truly unique, don't skip college entirely.
ok, seriously, i think you are talking at cross purposes with mike.
I too admire the drive and that drive is what it takes to succeed in school. I did some school, then went out founded a company, learned a lot more about myself and entrepreneurship and then decided that I needed to get formally education in this stuff. I'm very very happy I did.
I feel I was kind of like you in high school: I barely passed grade 9 & 10 (they tried to switch me to the 'slow' stream), my grades were mostly C- and D. I worked just hard enough in grade 11 and 12 to pull my grades up a bit B+ or so. I was more interested in learning things on my own.
I'm in Vancouver too - and I'm finishing up a Bachelor of Computer Science with a minor in Business at UBC. The entrepreneurial drive gave me what it takes to succeed in *school*. My GPA at UBC is an A+. This means I'm among the very top students in CS at UBC (or in Vancouver by extrapolation) - my opportunities are *significantly* better than before I went to school. Not to mention I feel much more confident about starting my own business, and I've met some really smart people to do it with.
Just my story but I very highly recommend going to University. At least at some point before you're 21.
Recall that learning occurs naturally as a byproduct of anything you do. It's an automatic, natural process. School serves the effect of retarding that process by flooding your brain with meaningless tasks and data.
The sooner you break out of school, the sooner you can get on with being yourself.
If you are in fact a bright, curious self-starter, I think the lessons you learn by your own exploration at a university will greatly overshadow what you've been taught by professors.
A college education is important to entrepreneurs for a variety of reasons outside of what is "learned" in class: free time to think about the problems with the world, living in a community of people your own age, (many of whom may also be interested in making an impact on society), free advice from a host of extremely knowledgeable experts (your professors), and the greater likelihood of networking with your school's alumni are all "side effects" that enhance the entrepreneurial experience.
So I would have to say NO, I did not learn anything life-changing from graduating with a 4-year business degree from a reputable university. I was not a person who attended class on a regular basis, nor did I spend much time worrying about homework.
But I would not have had the crucial experiences such as networking events with alumni to find Angel investment and creating an impromptu board of advisors of my college professors to give me the guidance to start a company. I also would not have met any of my current co-founders.
If it was possible to recreate this type of environment outside of the college experience, then I would agree that schooling was overrated.
At the end of the day, entrepreneurship is feeding that flame.
The great adventure of life (and I pray that everyone has a great adventure or 10 in their lives) is set in motion by how we confront that flame. Some are ready to take it on right out of high school, others take a bit longer. Some never ever confront it. That is very sad.
I think that education is a very good thing as it is often the mechanism which ultimately makes that flame burn a bit brighter --- for the right guy. Not for everybody. Is Barack Obama a candidate for President of the US if he doesn't have those degrees from Columbia and Harvard? I think not. I think their attainment confirmed what he already thought he knew of himself.
For my times, I went a very conventional route. Four years at VMI, degree in civil engineering, six years in the Army (dangerous times, ABN Ranger SF), MBA in finance while in the Army, bit of law school, big company experience and then I was ready to confront the flame. I desperately needed the structure of that experience to be ready to confront my own destiny.
I enjoyed each of those experiences on its own level but I did not realize they were readying me to conftont my own flame and to find my own way in the world. In some ways it would be fair to say that I was not as ready as the youth of today. You lucky 20 somethings have none of that necessity and frankly you are simply smarter and more clever. But I had life experiences which in some ways are not available today.
When I started in business, I never, ever had a single qualm about my likelihood for success but I had literally learned everything I ever needed to run a successful business as an infantry platoon leader. Nothing about ideas mind you, but how to run the show.
I started in business long before computers were invented and used in business; and, when they were, I was literally the first in my marketplace to buy one and use it. I am a fan of lifelong learning and subscribe to the Good Will Hunting example --- get a library card (OK, Amazon will work too). I read everything voraciously. I try to learn what the times have to teach.
I think that life is a series of 5 year experiences which build upon the earlier experiences. I think that we all have 3-5 careers within us and each is different than the other. I have been a professional soldier, a real estate developer, a private investor, a turn around guy and now a small public company guy. I think I have at least 2-3 more left. I am still hungry like the wolf but a wolf who has lived hard and knows calculus.
What I have found is that entrepreneurs are different. Viva la difference! But understand that you are cursed --- literally cursed --- because you want something that other folks do not want or cannot really fathom. YOU CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT IT and you are doomed to keep going after new ideas and starting companies forever.
My dear sainted Irish Catholic Mother used to sit me down from time to time and ask me how I could sleep at night when I owed $300MM as a real estate developer. She worried about me and used to pray for my soul. The problem was I used to ask myself ---- hmmmm, why don't I owe $750MM?
Whenever your flame flares up, feed it, fan it and enjoy it. Cause once you feel its heat you are ruined as an employee forever.
One of my favorite quotes, which I have used in this blog before is:
"I can no longer obey; I have tasted command, and I cannot give it up." Napoleon Bonaparte
You will know when YOU are ready and you don't NEED a degree to tell you that. But make your mommas proud and get the damn degree eventually.
http://bit.ly/rVz2n
I am a big fan of studying the lives of generals, having studied all of the most likely American and British generals, I am now beyond Giap, Degaulle, Montgomery and have been studying Napoleon. First, he had a lot of damn good quotes. Look him up on the web and his voice could have been relevant just a week ago.
I also dig Napoleon because he had an earthy side to him. He came from the time when soldiers were supposed to be fighting, feeding or fornicating. He did his share of all three.
I was an aide de camp to a 4-star in my last assignment and I have come to the conclusion that the American general officer corps is the country's greatest meritocracy. They are just a bit tone deaf when it comes to the contemporary culture --- not their fault mind you as they don't have quite enough exposure to it.
My favorite President is becoming Eisenhower. Don't get me started.
I very much dig Grant and Jackson. I love Grant's sheeer brutal toughness.
I would be willing to pay half of my net worth to find out the answer to the question of why Washington --- having gotten his butt kicked across Long Island, Manhattan, northern NJ and across the Delaware in the process not having won a single skirmish and facing the feared and indomitable Hessians --- decides to undertake a double envelopment night river crossing operation above and below Trenton and to attack the Hessians, withdraw to the Trenton Heights, defeat Howe and then sneaks out and captures Princeton, the British HQ.
In a 6 day period, he goes from complete defeat and the evaporation of his army to beating the most powerful army of their time, outnumbered and outgunned --- by picking the most difficult terrain challenges possible. When the southern river crossing was thwarted by ice, he just soldiers on having picked the northern crossing to personally travel with. If he had traveled with the southern element, maybe there is no US of A!
I believe that in that 6 day period, the essence of American triumph over insurmountable odds was made part of our DNA and it drives me crazy that I cannot learn how or why.
It is the greatest mystery in the history of the founding of our country. That George Washington had balls big enough to really be the father of a country. This is why I like studying Generals.
Academically, I have good school results, a scientific bachelor's degree, an engineering doctorate and have held a research fellowship (the last two at a world class university). But between each one of them, even before the school results, that flame (as you refer to it) flared up.
Each of those "conventional" academic steps were interspersed by a job in an area related to my areas of study; it all seemed to make sense at the time, all very "left-sided" thinking! But each job was terminated by a burst of something which fired my independence and drove me out into something less conventional, more "applied" and less academic.
Much of all this has been good, and some great. The doctoral research, in particular, was a wonderful time, in a "conventional" role but with independent thinking and a significant outcome.
There has been a general cycle: an academic stint (3-4 years); a work stint broadly based on academic subject (2-3 years); then the flame flares, so I do something off-beat, which does not work out (1 year); then pick up next academic slot.
Then, somehow, I ended up doing something slightly different. For about 16 years, I spent more than half my time working freelance and delivering (presenting) commercial training on software development. The independence, the lack of a command hierarchy and the absence of company politics kept the flame down for much longer than in previous cycles.
All this started at school about 40 years ago and I find that there is an analogy in my relationship with sporting activities. At school, most sport (which was compulsory) happened in teams. None of it really appealed to me, and I did not enjoy it much. But I would hear about one or two other people who engaged in solo sport, (such as golf) usually with much parental input. This made me curious about the types of people who took part in each type of activity and caused me to wonder how one managed to get to do that, and whether I might be better suited to solo activities.
Anyway, as it turns out, since then I have had the most enjoyment from skiing, sailing, playing golf and flying aircraft. So that thought turned out to be correct! In fact, not only were they solo (or almost so), they also had technical elements which I enjoy. In retrospect, it was that flame coming from somewhere inside.
Do I belong in academia? NO!
Do I belong as an employee? NO!
Do I want to lead others? I am happy to, if they choose to follow.
I am predominantly an individual with a mind of my own!!
Now I have been "out" again for a year or so, with my independence flame as hot as ever, feeling that I have a great deal to offer but not getting enough traction. The real world is catching up with me again fast: either something starts working very soon or it is back into ... what? Historically, the pattern is something academic!
At age 54, my feeling is that I am probably going to do something which finally breaks this cycle. Rather than seeing the conventional roles as being "in" and the short independent periods as being "out", the picture needs to change. Maybe If the "conventional" is "down" and the "independent" is "up" then, thinking aviation, I have plenty of "thrust", but I am in search of some "lift". Continuing that analogy: I need to sprout some wings and pitch up!
Anyway, what's education got to do with it? Education has given me tools that I would not otherwise have had. Apart from that, its academic pull has probably been holding me back.
My thoughts.
Fred, It has been discussed many times and there is a forbes billionaire quiz. College degree is necessary for everything else but being an entrepreneur. Its more of a great networking time and just for people to build credibility when they dont have work experience to back up.
I would disagree with this too. A college degree is necessary when the person's work and personal qualifications aren't enough. That's it.
There are plenty of companies that hire people without college degrees to all sorts of things. I think if you look at the places that require a degree you'll find they need more proof that just work credentials can provide.
I've learned a lot from you
But this line from his article on wikipedia sure resonated with me from my school days "I don't get no respect. I played hide-and-seek, and they wouldn't even look for me”.
The question is, is it worth 4 years of your life and thousands and thousands of dollars. Not to mention that you push back the beginning of your business, which, if successful, could compound your wealth and success exponentially.
Btw, how does the 30-50% compare to the numbers of college educated middle-class?
Good question though
Actually you learn all life long. If you are curious enough, open minded and a little clever, you can become whatever you dream about.
From what I have seen, in many cases the new investors "force" the founder to step aside and take the "Chief Creativity Officer" position. They require that a senior CEO and exec team will take the lead and in many cases these are MBAs from Ivy league schools.
Then it is just a matter of time until the entrepreneur will move on to start a new company without really demonstrating whether he can actually turn an idea into a **profitable business**.
to serious EBTIDA and exit
Also, in the case of true technology companies (vs. web-enabled businesses), it is increasingly important to have the time and academic study needed to develop ground-breaking products. When Microsoft started, it didn't need to be much more than a hack-job, Google needed a lot more time and brain-power.
Was it worth it as an entrepreneur? No. Hands down I learned more actually running a business for 6 months than I did in 2 years of undergrad business classes.
I've been an Entrepreneur - still am, in fact. I've also taught courses in Entrepreneurship - even though I don't necessarily agree that it can be taught. (I always get strange looks from the class on the first day of lectures with that one.)
What I say to students is that entrepreneurship is a capstone of all the classes you've taken - from English to PR to Accounting to Strategy, and doing real things with that knowledge, from scratch. Creating your own template.
The companies I started simply didn't have a preset set Qucikbooks accounting categories, or even a standard way of doing business. Who knows what to charge, how to package it, what to pay people, how do format your invoices?
I try to pursued my students that education is about asking better questions, not just knowing the answers.
Probably the best thing I do is to teach some students that the real world of entrepreneurship isn't all that wonderful - most overnight success comes from lots of hard work. I most likely have saved parents a ton of start-up money.
You don't need a degree to be an entrepreneur - but you do need to be a curious soul...
See: http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/sel...
"Hire the attitude, train the skill"
One of the most interesting things about a night MBA program is that everybody has a job already. They are real world folks not just studenten. They are as much the education as the coursework.
Look at some of the big time open courseware programs from places like MIT or Stanford. The documentation and course materials are out of this world. You can educate yourself. I recently spent a year taking a grad econ course all on the internet --- just because I was interested and it was very stimulating and useful in trying to understand the current mess.
my kids are quite young. but by the time they are 19, I would have to support their wishes. I would certainly share my opinion - especially if it was a startup :)
(I'm gonna save this comment so I can remind myself in case I lose the will as I get older.)
I think I'd say "go for it" but that last "what if "does not apply to me or
her
It's really hard for me to put myself in that place and answer honestly
From the 40-y-o perspective:
My father used to say while I was in high school, over and over, why do you need to go to college? He was so different from the other prep school parents who beat their kids (figuratively) to get into Harvard. He'd spent a career noticing little correspondence to success with college. I was an entrepreneurial kid, had two healthy businesses from seventh grade through high school and well beyond, so I guess that's why he said it. But as an adult I've been more of a worker bee, so I'm really glad I have that Ivy credential when I'm at job interviews. Has opened doors, looking back. Also, college is a wonderful social period, normalizes kids, and let's face it, in this country, in this culture, adolescence lasts a long, long time. (You're not an adult at 18, nor at 22.) I say, push them toward college, if they resist HARD on their own, then there you go, they're off at Apple or Facebook, and what can you do! I guess then they are an adult after all!
yep. agree completely.
What many people fail to consider is what that "place" is like for the person leaving college or deciding not to go at all? It's terrifying, frankly. Parents should provide a safety net - not necessarily a financial one, but a level of moral support that encourages risk and self-confidence. What's the worst that can happen with someone leaves school? I mean really, the worst. Has anyone ever died from it?
Most people will fail. In which case they should be in a position where the result is not so traumatic that they never bet on themselves again.
However, beyond that, a startup experience would make an outstanding application essay should an entrepreneur decide to pursue a college education, possibly getting them into a "better" school than they might have attended otherwise, so it can be a win-win proposition.
I left and joined the Marine Corps which was one of the best experiences of my life. I got out after I fell 60 feet down a vertical cliff.
To make a long story short I’m self taught, started up a successful small company, and then spent the next 18 years being an entrepreneur in “corporate” America. I’ve managed multi-million dollar P&Ls, developed new product lines for billion dollar companies, consulted Fortune 500 companies in technology and management, worked with one of the smartest CEOs (Compaq) I’ve met in technology, and merged the leadership programs of two of the biggest oil companies who merged. My last gig in the corporate world was as a CIO for a real estate development and construction firm where led the development and implementation of their financial and production management systems.
Then it hit me again – I didn’t want to keep on making others wealthy. Don’t get me wrong, my education in the School of Life is amazing. I am a voracious learner and persistent doer. But as with all entrepreneurs I wanted to develop something that will help people, generate revenue for the company, and profit for my potential investors and for me.
I’m 46 years old now and starting up a new company. Yes in a bad economy, it’s crazy, it’s scary and I’m having the time of my life, working my butt off, and driving a vision that I’m executing with passion and intelligence. All without a college degree.
But what your post raised for me was this – okay you say you don’t need a college degree. I’m intensely interested in what you and others think about what makes a great entrepreneur.
As usual a great thought provoking post Fred. Thank you.
Peter
years than college
But I did not take that track so I can't really speak to it
I have never made a mistake when I was broke or during bad times. I have made a boat load of mistakes when I could afford them and when I thought the good times would last forever. Hubris on my part.
Timing works with you and against you. I thinks its karma and kismet.
I bought a big high end hospitality business three weeks before 9-11 --- all the King's horses, all the King's men..........ouch!
I lost a small fortune owning it --- had a damn good time but lost a bloody fortune.
I finally sold it last April and let the buyer cash out a big note for a small discount in August. Great timing as I would be choking down that note just about now.
Kismet.
The Marines are pretty damn good training for just about anything in life. Sometime I will tell you my story about running away from home and joining the Marines. Semper Fi!
The best work I've ever done as a vc was in 2001-2003
and Ben Kweller
My main avenue into various organizations is as a consultant. They find out that I lack a degree when I am offered a permanent position. And by that time it no longer matters. It only matters to the HR department who is filtering out resumes.
great to hear that you are looking to invest in the education sector, boss. i think the opptys are huge. personally i think niche social networking will serve to replace the classroom. though i think niche social networking will disrupt everything, so i am kinda delusional like that. (but possibly right!)
more specifically, i think niche social networking coupled with gaming will bring about the much needed education revolution.
"You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library." -- good will hunting
College can make the process easier - networking, learning accounting, financing, management. But in the end you will learn those things along the way no matter what.
Note that I did not say "well schooled" because I think a strong training
program can teach you a lot of what you can learn in college
entrepreneurial skill. My MBA, though, has saved me from having to
learn from some painful mistakes!
--
Andrew Watson
one of the most brilliant programmers at our company is still in college. we give him crap all the time that he should quit. what's he gaining? he's clearly smart enough to make it on his own without the prestige of a degree, and he's often bored with class work and much happier working on real-world work.
more than anything, i think these points are a challenge to secondary education: what value can you add to entrepreneurial folks?
Truer words were never spoken
Heck, Bill Gates and Fred Smith (founded FedEx) did pretty well without diplomas.
Of course you don't "need" a college degree to be an entrepreneur. On the other hand, I am not so sure about this statements of yours.
"I have learned that where someone went to college (or even if they didn't go to college) has absolutely no correlation to whether they will be a good entrepreneur or not. I don't pay attention to that part of a resume."
I only realized later in my career that I have entrepreneurial passion. I don't think we can expect all teen agers to realize that they are born to be entrepreneurs and do not need college education. So, I do pay attention to school and more importantly how well (including GPA and leadership activities) they did there, because they show how persistent and driven they are. College and early careers are really taking some time to understand who they are.
Also, it is not useless. I majored in economics (and MBA later), and the economic thinking always helps me professionally as well as personally. I would 'waste' four years or more, even when 'no college for entrepreneurs' is established as norm.
Again, no. You don't need to go to college to be an entrepreneur. But you can still go to college and learn something. Choice is always good (and yes, often very painful), and making choice is a great part of entrepreneurial life.
entrepreneur "and that is not the corollary to the rule in the title of the
post
If 20-33% of our entrepreneurs didn't graduate from college, then 66-80% did
My point is simply that its not a requirement for success
Another point. I think we will have more alternatives than the current school model. An exciting area for entrepreneurs. If experience is important for young people, then a model more friendly to exploring different careers could be one. If the implicit goal of current school model is preparing them a good white collar citizen in a big organization, the new model's goal could be helping you find out who you are and what you want to be.
I'll also go out on a limb and say that college is indirectly related to business anyway. Business is about serving your customers while being able to generate a profit. I believe college is about learning about life. Without college I would have not likely been exposed to Plato's Myth of the Cave, or even Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Sometimes I think of things like the guys who were shitty toward Huckleberry and Jim getting tortured by a lynching mob and Huckleberry having some compassionate things to say about them and the scene. That's interesting and the ideas help in dealing with human relations, but guided exposure to soft concepts like that doesn't have to do directly with creating and running a business. It has to do with leading a happy life though.
And I feel badly about that sometimes
I had never pondered that thought as I was all of 17 and was a bit overawed with my jumpshot at the time. Remember the draft was on in my day and there was a bit more discipline about getting into and staying in college because of the war.
A week later, at dinner he told me a story about how the engineers had prospered in spite of the Great Depression. Cause engineers could figure out how to make change in their heads when selling apples and pencils on a street corner! Haha.
I pondered that.
I studied civil engineering in college.
I think the combination of engineering and an MBA in finance is an optimum education for business. The liberal arts --- that's what you read at the beach! Plus when you read them at the beach, you're old enough and wise enough to appreciate them. Plus then you can actually retain and remember them. I read voraciously. I have spent a whole lot of time at the beach. LOL
Each of those four things, plus the market crash in 2000, the gift of the internet at the right place and right time, and a woman who kicks my ass is what makes me who I am
I think the concept of apprenticeship or mentoring is very, very interesting. Through the years I have had a bunch of very, very bright young folks work for me. I cannot tell you the pleasure it brings me to follow their careers and to see how successful all of them have become. Every few years, I will have a party to which I invite them all. It is the most fun. They are always "grateful" for something which they contend that I did to help them when all I ever really did was work them like slaves and demand perfection.
One year, the theme of the party was things I had said to them, particularly obnoxious things apparently:
Check, doublecheck, re-check EVERYTHING!
In life you get what you INSPECT not what you EXPECT.
The difference between GOOD and GREAT is about one minute of additional work.
It is what it is and we shall MAKE it so.
Please tell me what I just told you.
Don't tell me what your job is, tell me the outcome you are responsible for.
Give me complete staff work. Tell me the problem. Tell me the proposed solutions. Tell me your recommendation and tell me why.
Burn the boats.
On a side note, if entrepreneurs often don't have college degrees, why do you suppose VC's often have ivy league degrees and lots of MBAs?
"I got a degree in philosophy. And I only remember enough to ruin me for the rest of my life."
So he quit, started his own consultancy, remained in the parent company's ecosystem, and grew the new business tremendously fast, until he sold it 3 years later. He then become CEO of another company, to be acquired 2 years later in a $700M deal (inflated bubble-stock), then to become President of the acquiring entity.
Finally he quit, and having made around $100M in personal wealth (my guesstimate) he is now Partner in a Private Equity firm.
All without a degree :-)
The universities are in big enough trouble as it is with their endowments
down 30%
Seriously, some of the smartest entrepreneurs I know made it through one, maybe two years of college. Are they whizzes with spreadsheets? Do they know all the right buzzwords? Can they give a picture perfect definition of EBITDA and DCF and FCF? Hell no. But they are creative, driven, passionate and they have an intrinsic understanding of value, the need for profitability and are very tuned to their customer base.
Hmmm, thinking now i may have pissed away the 7 years I spent in undergrad :-)
I started college just at the start of the dotcom boom and, like lots of other people, I launched a start-up at the same time, soon dropping out to follow it full time. Just before the crash, I sold the start-up to a larger company, earning a nice payout (for my age... I was 21), and joining the ranks of that company. I was very happy about my decision to drop out from college, and though I'd never regret it.
1 year afterward, the crash had happened and the company was bankrupt. I was jobless, in a pretty bad market, and considering whether to go back to college or look for a job. I went looking for a job, since I had experienced the thrill of starting up a company, and going back to school had no appeal to me. The next 2-3 years weren't easy, since I had to make do with a lower-level job (and much lower salary), and climb back from there. Boy, I wish I had finished college. But I learned a lot in those years
Finally, I was sent abroad by my company, and 6 years later, here I am, with a job I love in the videogames industry, with lots of responsibility and a commensurate salary, working on the cutting edge of multiplayer/social gaming, living on the other side of the world, traveling all the time and accumulating experience.
I'm now happy with the decisions I made back then, and think that having been to college would not add much to who I am now: 10+ years of experience working in digital media, from start-ups to large org, pretty much teach you everything you need to know. Eventually, I will think about starting my own thing again, whenever a great idea strikes me, and I feel I haven't anything much more to learn by working in a company.
Sure, I had to learn and teach myself the hard way a lot of stuff, from finance to HR-related issues, and made several mistakes along the way. However, when I stopped thinking that I knew everything, and started learning from more experienced people (and even less experienced people) around me, that became part of my daily routine, and I didn't really felt I was at a disadvantage.
Bottom line: without college, unless you are lucky with your first try, expect a few years of very hard slog, of doubting about yourself and your skills, of having to eat humble pie. However, once you're through that phase, don't think for a second that not having a degree penalizes you in any way, because you have demonstrated over time what you are worth.
I would say that probably the most important thing college/biz school/MBA can give you is access to a network of people, which is clearly one of the most useful things to have, but that can be built over time to.
But you should consider yourself a permanent member of my network
I think you may hold the record for the longest and most consistent
commenter on this blog
Any idea when you first started commenting?
I was thinking the same thing... I was still living in Italy when I first commented, so we're talking about 5-6 years ago at least. It's weird how, from Italy to Brazil to Singapore to China, I always considered this blog a constant feature of my days. Can you have a friendship with a blog, or is that considered creepy?
In fact, I am super psyched about May in NYC period
This winter is getting to me
OK, so August is coming soon. LOL
lie
There are a dozen or so longtime and very loyal commenters and you are most
certainly on that list
;)
Totally agree that college isn't for everyone. I think one of the biggest and best reforms we could make in education would be to encourage kids to take a year off after high school before college. Most kids waste their freshman year drinking themselves silly anyway, and have no idea what major they should pursue.
And yes the Google guys whent to college but they were both home schooled, so was Mr. Karp of Tumblr. If you want to add people who didn't really go to college you would have to include Kevin Rose and our beloved Gary Vaynerchuk.
The question is not if you need school or not but does school destroy some playful part that is needed for creativity. Don't forget that schools as we know them are perhaps 100 years old phenomenon. This is an experiment on a massive scale and it is up to us to observer and report the results.
"Brin attended grade school at Paint Branch Montessori School in Adelphi, Maryland, but he received further education at home; his father, a professor in the department of mathematics at the University of Maryland, nurtured his interest in mathematics and his family helped him retain his Russian-language skills."
Larry nominally graduated from Lansing High School after he attended a Montessori school in Lansing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Page
Both obviously had parents who taught mathematics on university level and where superior to any possible teacher.
you cant get in the VC world without an MBA unless you buy your way in. Kinda strange how two distinctly opposite groups manage to co-exist - oh thats right - thefunded is the bridge ;)
There are five of us in total who work on investments
Now i think about it - i run in to more of the MBA crowd at the private equity firms.
OT - loving zemanta intergration with WP - Zemanta is a winner IMO. chipping away at semantics.
i don't have a MBA.
:)
Here in Waterloo, many startups are as a result of the university sponsoring\incubating projects. At least two of our largest success stories were incubated or affiliated with the University of Waterloo. I would say that colleges actually play a far greater role in supporting entreprenuership than many realize.
i can see how you might think i did
i didn't mean to, but maybe i did
Sorry Fred..I'll be clearer next time
Thanks
This is a discussion
Best to have all point of view included
The liberal arts education is supposed to teach you how to "learn" and "ask the right questions"--and I really think it has done this in my case. But did it teach me specific skills that set me apart from my peers? Absolutely not. While my ultimate dream is to be a successful entrepreneur, I know that I need some more specific skills in order to add value--may they be tech, finance, marketing, what have you. I think that the entrepreneur needs to be able to add value where others cannot. In many cases, a more focused degree will facilitate that. In my case, however, I wouldn't trade my liberal arts degree for anything, but I hope to eventually find a way to add meaningful and unique value to an entrepreneurial opportunity. If someone can do that without a college degree, then fantastic. But they might be missing out on some of the other benefits--non career or economic related--that a college degree can afford.
Thanks for the post Fred. And thanks Lloyd for the comment about some of the other learning opps in college.
I did go on to get an MBA from an ivy league school, though I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I think it was 'required' as I could pick up the hard skills like DCF, NPV, accounting etc., but it's a sham when it comes to being an entrepreneur. You can pick up those skills in a book, but people need the short-cut degree / school name because they feel good about assessing one person against another. Same for getting into the schools. They look at GPA and entrance exam scores (except Harvard which stands by the fact that they don't predict outcomes). It's good to look at the data like Fred does, but most of the world hires and invests in part on your education.
I still think we're in pretty barbaric days because it is my network where I found the wealthly person who backed me. That has nothing to do with 'the idea'. Friends and family are what gets something started, and 95% of people out there don't have those kinds of Friends and family, nor a way to get into the clubs where you can get them for just being in the club. It used to be that you had to know the plural of a group of animals to hunt on Versailles land, so that was protected information. Britain made laws to stop the export of manufacturing fabric. And today, you're network is how introductions get made.
Achievement in education wrongly counts in predicting the outcome of events for who will succeed going into a school, or after school. I feel for investors as the best predictor seems to be existing success. There isn't a way yet to scale looking at deals. That leaves a lot of good ideas not tried for a lack of backing. I think there are 99 other Googles that did't happen because assessing ideas isn't done yet.
We're still in the dark ages of developing new ideas and when we can assess the quality of ideas, we'll be in a new era. It really irked me that the WSJ suppliment didn't mention the quality of your endevor as having any outcome on being an entrepreneur. There's a whole lot to be said about what they left out, like what Google's haven't happened.
I left college for 18 months to run a startup full time back in 07. I decided to leave my startup in November for various reasons, and am taking the next year to finish college while formulating what to do next full time as an entrepreneur. College is a check box to me. It's something I'd like to finish, because I've always found academics important to *me*, not as some sort of validation to the outside world.
After doing startups for a few years and "stopping out" of college, I can honestly say college has had no impact on entrepreneurship for me. Most people think I actually finished.
If you're thinking of dropping out / stopping out, here are the questions I asked myself when deciding to leave, maybe they'll help you:
a) Will the subject matter or degree give you any useful skillsets that you can use as an entrepreneur?
b) If you graduated tomorrow, would you plan on doing anything different than your startup?
If both answers are no, then stopping out might be a smart option.
Education isn't about becoming a millionaire. It's about learning a skill that can be useful to society. That may not pay as well as winning the lottery or doing well with a new venture (which contains a large amount of luck as well), but it's also an objective for many people (including entrepreneurs), even if it's not yours.
http://www.kauffman.org/Details.aspx?id=1784
Sorry, but entrepreneurship, like any creative endeavor, requires the discipline of learning the field. Entirely new fields, like consumer Internet technology in the 1990s, won't put younger folks at as much of a disadvantage as more established ones. But on the whole, I believe dropping out puts one at a disadvantage to making creative contributions to most fields. It can be done, but it's much easier when you speak the language and have the relationships that come from a formal education.
* 84% of Americans over age 25 have at least a High School Diploma
* 27% of Americans over age 25 have at least a Bachelor’s Degree
So when you consider that 73% of Americans DONT have a 4 year degree, its not surprising that 20-35% of VC investments go to company's lead by individuals without a degree.
While "Some of the founders didn't have the patience to sit through four years of education" maybe a fun answer to why there are so many degree-less founders, the answer is probably far more simple - there is a big population of individuals without a degree and there are bound to be a small number of incredible outlier type individuals out of this group.
Good post.
Paul
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attain...
Fred, you gave some college degree stats on your portfolio companies based on pre- & post-USV funding. I'm wondering what the stats look like post-USV exit or in some later round. I guess this is probably in line with some other comments you've received about how the nature of the team changes as a venture matures.
College allows for more personal growth/maturity and is a great place to meet people to collaborate with and who can help move your ideas forward.
I'd like to see college become more difficult instead of professors who pass out A's and B's like candy.
Also, I think 2 years military service after high school would be beneficial (maybe not mandatory, but strongly encouraged). Learning discipline, fitness, getting real world experience, and seeing new parts of the country/world would help most high school grads. Add to that some form of tuition assistance to those who serve their 2 years, and it could be a winner.
I used college in NYC as a leverage to get me back into this city I love and to learn about a business I knew very little about. I knew I would never work for someone else and while I don't believe college is needed or is important for an entrepreneur it did help me to focus myself. (I could of done the same working for someone, but in the design biz 20 years ago, you needed a kick ass portfolio to get work) So I think you have to look at what you want to get out of the time you put into college vs other options.
Having a daughter in High School, I'm very mixed on whether I want her to go to college or not, I'm leaving that decision for a later time...
If you want to be a scientist/clean-tech/engineer entrepreneur, you need to go to college. Period.
But let's not confuse education with college
http://howardlindzon.com/?p=4021
I somehow missed that one howard
college was the best four years of my life and i'd never sacrifice that experience. sure, you don't need a degree to be an entrepreneur, but college is more than a diploma.
In my opinion, for a young entrepreneur who is just starting out, being in the college setting is a great benefit (especially in an entrepreneurship hotbed like Boston). While at school, not only did I have access to some great business minds during class and around campus, I also had the opportunity to attend about as many seminars and networking events that my Charlie card could possibly handle. Although I do not believe that a 4 year degree is a requirement for success, the university setting is perhaps the best place for a young entrepreneur to learn how to network and build a team willing to work for sweat equity. I would not trade my year of college for anything. I do not feel that it was anywhere close to a waste of time, nor was I ever once bored with it. I had a great time while I was there, and I believe that it has helped my current venture tremendously.
in all seriousness, I keep running into great entrepreneurs that have dropped out for one reason or another.
i've been pinged by a ton of different young entrepreneurs that ask me what they should do about their post secondary education choices while in university... lured by the glamor and freedom of doing your own thing and dropping out.
while I love learning, i hated school. I started a number of ventures while in high school, and then got invovled in my first internet venture while in my late teens during the first months of my university carreer. I decided to drop out, got lucky, and made some FU money. I'm now a few ventures later, and made a bit more FU money along the way while having a blast and learning tons.
did I learn tons more than i would have in school? hell yes. did i ever regret my decision to leave school. no. if i had kids, would i recommend dropping out to start something? hell no.
i think the whole school vs. dropout/startup thing is highly dependent on how driven an individual is -- more so than ever before..
kids growing up today have far more access to a wealth of information over the internet than I ever did (i got access to dialup internet only in my 2nd year of highschool). they have the opportunity to be a lot more savvy just by the nature of having access to the internet of today the day enter school. anyone that is under 20 today (and started going to jr. high school/middle school with net access) has a huge advantage over those that are over 20. the explosion of information that happened in the late 90s between blogs, wikipedia, vast amounts of industry journals, educational resources/videos (ex. MIT's open course ware content), underground resources for virtually any major technical or even business reference, ebay for cheap text books, message boards like these to interact with though leaders. if someone had the desire to learn a new skill or industry, there's a ton you could learn on your own. some of the best coders and entrepreneurs that I've met were a combination of being just gifted, and extremely passionate about their craft -- that also happened to be drop outs.
for young people making the decision -- the question I think they have to honestly assess for themselves is: do you really have the talent, the will to win, the maturity, the ability to thrive on adversity, and most importantly the passion for your craft that drives to learn on your own, on the go, working twice as hard as everyone else that you'll need be successful to overcome the odds that are going to be stacked against you by those that have who are better prepared with because they have the tools and the doors that open along with great schooling?
I'm sure 99.9% of the folks considering the option are better off staying in school given their odds. the challenge is figuring out if they are in the 0.1%
its late, and its been a long 20 hour day for me, so the above might not be entirely coherent... so i'll better quit while i'm ahead. =)
Not exactly what I intended but I'm sticking with it because its how I see it
but the math says something else.
The math is very simple.
27% making it to 66%
73% making it to 34%
If you have college degree you have more than 5-times advantage to become an entrepreneur!! :-)
The number is not actually 5 it is more than 50.
OK. Let me put it this way.
You ask all college educated people how many of them
tried (not just dreamt) entreprenuel experiment. 95% will say no.
So you got your 66% from 5% (of 27%). Ask the same to college
drop-outs 80% will say yes. You got your 34% from 80%(of 73%).
Hope you will agree that ... you can't win if you don't try. If
95% are not even tring where is the one-to-one comparision?
If we leave out exemptional cases this is the math.
I'm not saying which is the better business, by the way! I'm am saying, though, that one is a much more difficult class of problem. The truth is - tackling some problems requires a strong grounding in both the fundamentals of a subject and the cutting-edge of human knowledge that only a university education is going to provide.
Was apple or microsoft easier to build than genentech?
What you say makes sense when you read it, but I am challenging our assumptions with this post and I'd like to challenge yours as well
Could A Child Do It?
----------------------------
An imperfect surrogate for "do you need a college degree?" might be - could a smart, enthusiastic child learn enough, by themselves, to create an innovative business in a given area.
1. Software (e.g. Microsoft). Since the availability of home microcomputers around say, 1980, I think the answer is an unequivocal yes. It's possible for kids to teach themselves programming, and get *really* good at it. Today, the Internet offers more opportunities that there have ever been in software for the youngest of entrepreneurs.
2. Electronics (e.g. Apple). Not quite so clear cut as software. However, for sure, children can teach themselves electronics and get really good at it. One of the challenges for child entrepreneurs might be an R&D budget. So, to succeed business-wise, this is an area when young entrepreneurs would have to pick their projects wisely. For example, today, it's probably a tough ask for a kid to design and market a "better iPhone"; but they might well be able to do something very cool in the area of, say, consumer robotics.
3. Life Sciences / Molecular Sciences (e.g. Genentech). Try as I might, I just can't see this one. Here's why...
Firstly, I think it's really difficult for a child to get really good at life sciences/molecular sciences by being self-taught. Why? I think it just takes too many years to "know enough" to get a good understanding of how the world works at the molecular level. So, at high-school, you might think you know how molecules work. Then, you go to University, and find out that most of what you thought you know is wrong. Then, you get your first degree, and start your PhD, and realize you know virtually nothing. Then, you get your PhD and think you're an expert in your chosen field. Except, a few years down the line, you realize a PhD really is just a "training degree" and you're amazed you ever managed to make any progress whatsoever back then, such was your lack of knowledge.
Secondly, I think there's an issue in the way that know-how gets passed around. At the cutting edge of the molecular sciences, state-of-the-art know-how really isn't written down anywhere. By know-how, I mean - how you actually get the experiments to *really* work. Reading the literature isn't that much of a help. Back when Genentech was founded, for example, they were exploiting some really low-hanging fruit (a great thing to do, of course) in the area of molecular biology: cloning genes, sub-cloning into expression vectors, and over-expressing protein in bacteria. The experimental techniques involved are actually so simple that a child could do them. However, back then - getting molecular biology like this to work was in many ways more of an art than a science. People learned it by being around other people that had "green fingers" and could do the experiments. The same is true today at the cutting edge. If you're not in a cutting edge research organization, either commercial or academic, it's quite unlikely you'll be to get new techniques to work properly without a lot of time and effort.
So - the best I can do at explaining my assertion about needing college degrees for life sciences right now is: a university provides the best environment for learning the fundamentals in some subjects, but maybe not others; innovation in some subjects is more about research than in others, and universities are by far the best place to really learn how to do research; and in some subjects, key know-how is held within research organizations like universities.
Interestingly, if you follow the above logic - it begs the question: why does Google (a software company) have so many PhD on the team? I suspect it's likely to be simply an idiosyncrasy of some senior people there who happen to value academic education rather highly; as opposed to bringing any genuine value to the company.
I think you are right about all of this
I rarely hire anyone without a degree and some of the biggest employee flameouts I have had are with non degreed people.
That being said I was horrible college student and a so-so employee. Doing ok running a business though :)
I've seen absolutely no correlation between a college degree and entrepreneurial excellence
Think VRM for education.
Think new kind of degrees that derive their value from communicating info about authentic reputation.
Colossal inefficiencies built in current education system create ever increasing incentives to „hack“ it (and change the world and profit fabulously along the way).
Saying that, I haven't got a degree but would like to have done it, even though I haven't needed one so far :)
Being an entrepreneur, imho, is a character trait. it is not something you become over time with experience or with a degree. You either are, or you are not. The problem is that many people "think" they are. Many people think they are the next Gates or Zuckerberg, but most are not... for those - deciding not to get a college degree could be one of the worst life bets they can make...
I think this quote demonstrates why this column is, to my mind, irresponsible. It is certainly true that to be a successful entrepreneur doesn't require college. The same could be said of successful rock-stars, basketball players, and actors.
But in reality, many entrepreneurs do not simply always doggedly pursue an idea and make it happen. Timing, as Malcolm Gladwell points out in Outliers, is a huge factor. And often times, due to the economy or simply not having the right idea at the right time, there are periods of down time. Also, most entrepreneurs, like say professional sports aspirants, fail.
At those times, having the credential of a top notch education is extremely important to fall back on. Did Bill Gates leave college to pursue an enormous opportunity? Yes. But if that opportunity or timing wasn't right, that could have been perceived later in his life as a disastrous mistake.
It’s a waste of time and money for many people
I'm about to spend it 3x in the next five years and I'm ok with that
But if my kid says to me that they'd rather just start working, I'd be fine with that too
I have been relating to my son the advice of Paul Graham (Ycombinator). He has a great analogy about education and experience being similar to flying an airplane. You want to have options. In an airplane, that's usually altitude and airspeed. The more altitude and airspeed you have, the more options you have if the engine fails or you have some other emergency. With altitude and airspeed you can usually find some place to land and the result is a successful flight, despite the emergency. In life, it's education and experience. The better the school you can attend and most importantly the better grades you can achieve, or the better the working experience you can get, the more options you have and the better chance you have to make a successful "landing" (i.e. get what you want out of life, whatever that is).
Simple. Do your best and achieve and then whatever opportunity comes along, you have the best chance of being able to seize it.
In spite of my 2 degrees (and military service and real estate career in between the two), I have managed to start 4 companies (2 with decent exits, 2 not so much). Could I have done it sooner if I didn't go to school, maybe. Could I have done it better or worse? Maybe. But that's not the point. Life (these days) is mostly a long journey with plenty of time for everything. The most important thing (as I tell my son) is to make the most of the time, no matter what you are doing. If you can't make the most of it in school, then you don't belong there, and you should go to work where you will have a better chance of being the best. If you don't see opportunities in work where you can be the best or learn from the best, then go to school. If at all possible, do both (as long as you can do both well).
The only bad thing you can do is choose the easy (and mediocre) path in whatever you choose.
My business in the future of learning and education. The only USP that colleges have is accreditation. Take that away and you have got interesting but antiquated learning situations - but they are not necessarily the right ones for these times. There are so many more interesting ways of coming to know stuff now.
There is still probably a need for some "space" when you are young. There is a need for the most old fashioned kind of university education - which is not of the degree factory kind- at some point in most intelligent people's lives- an education that challenges you and puts you with chalenging people discussing big ideas within a cultural context. I also think that some science and engineering needs another kind of hot-house.
Entrepreneurialism is a state of mind and not a qualification - but I might add there is a kind of self-congratualtoryness amongst some entrepreneurs. Building a business is an important activity - but there are plenty of other important activities too (last week in this forum I detected a belief that the entrepreneur is more "important" than the inventor for instance - and I did need my college learning for invention)
accreditation away from schools and places it in control of the student.
Every time I get a mindless email from a recruiter that insists that you must have a CS degree from a "top university," it makes me want to yack.
A lot of the recruiters I talk to don't even know that my university (UCSB) actually is a top-50 American university.
I scanned the comments and I'd say the sentiment is that you are helping the validate that idea that college isn't a necessary (or, i suppose, sufficient) condition for success.
However, are you being selective in how you are presenting your data? You point out that about 1/3 of your current portfolio have founders without college degrees. But this represents only a small segment of your experience with entrepreneurs.
What if you asked, how does the educational background of a founder affect success/failure of a company and/or its ability to scale?
Say you define success/failure as successive rounds of funding or exits and looked at who was running the company after the round. If I were a betting man, I'd say that educational background correlates with both the number of rounds of funding and the size of the rounds/exits.
Given your long experience in the business, I'm curious if you think this is anywhere close to being correct.
A successful entrepreneur doesn't have to take the company all the way to
exit, however
I know of many serial entrepreneurs who start a new company every three to
four years, get it working, and then turn it over to a management team, and
then move on to the next one.
That kind of entrepreneur will never be around at exit
And they are also likely to be the kind of entrepreneur who never finishes
things (including college)
You’ll know far better than I …..but I would suggest that entrepreneurial success requires the imagination to solve problems rather than any specific knowledge. Along the lines of Einstein’s quote "Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited."
Obviously you can’t ‘learn’ imagination, but you are more likely to be impacted by the people you hang around with and they’ll be a large part of how any problem solution is arrived at.
Whereas entrepreneurs don’t need to go to college I’d be surprised if the successful ones weren’t fantastic at getting things done, which is significantly impacted by who you can get to do things for you, or at least who you can ask when you have a problem.
It’s hard but not impossible to replace the range of people you find at college while working in a job that you would feasibly be hired for at 18 (some tech jobs possibly excluded).
However it poses the question of what impact social media has. Through Twitter and blogs it’s possible to get to know what the smart people are reading, thinking and spending time on - in real time. You can then get to know them virtually and most critically get the network that answers the problems.
All the data on college degrees is by its nature historical. It doesn’t take into account the real time sharing of knowledge via social media.
Kidmercury (above) suggests that niche social networking will replace the classroom. If Malcolm Gladwell is to be believed 10,000 hours is the important hurdle. I wonder whether 10,000 hours of social networking would be worth weighing against $200,000 for a college education…..
JLM, any thoughts on the content of the farewell speech??
He was a great executive and was able to drive folks to frame decisions in such a way that he could make decisions in an instant. The decision to "go" on 6 June 1944 in the face of spotty weather achieved tactical surprise --- no damn small thing when you've got a fleet you could walk across the Channel on.
When the Germans attacked in the Bulge, Eisenhower immediately understood that this was a "decisive" engagement in which he could destroy a huge segment of the German army because Hitler had gone "all in". Eisenhower did not waste time trying to assess the damage or lay blame, he decided immediately to go on the offensive. He convened his commanders and asked who could attack quickest to cut off the German thrust and bag the attacking German army. He was already ready to fight the next battle.
Montgomery (in the north) said --- two weeks at least. Patton said --- I turned two Divisions north this morning, I'll be ready to go in 48 hours.
Eisenhow and Patton (who outranked him at the time) had dismantled a WWI vintage tank with crescent wrenches in a garage at Aberdeen (?) right after WWI. Polo playing haughty rich kid Patton and dirt poor Kansas farm kid Eisenhower. And when Eisenhower needed Patton to move --- they both understood instinctively what they required of each other and what a tank could really do.
He drew men to him who would do what was necessary to be done and he gave them credit for doing it. That's real leadership and not a poll or focus group in the mix.
His admonitions about the military-industrial complex could only be made by a guy who knew the Pentagon inside out. The challenge with weapons systems is that we have become so powerful we are designing against the last design rather than any known threat. We can kill the bad guys 5000 x over.
Today we may not need such elaborate weapon systems --- the genius of those 9-11 SOBs was the elegant simplicity of the weapon system --- they used box cutters to transform a civilian airplane into a deadly rocket.
Witness the economy of the armed Predator UAV --- stays on station, deadly, accurate and no AFA grads necessary to operate. Operated by a gamer in a darkened warehouse in Arizona.
I think the last unspoken subject in the world is the international arms trade in which we are the world's leader. It is awful because despots almost always use their toys. Witness the Iraqi attack on Kuwait which started this entire mess. No 5000 tanks, no war in the desert. Ugh.
So, yes, I am very high on Eisenhower's warning re the military - industrial complex.
to build the eisenhower memorial in DC
Apparently Ike is the 5th or 6th most popular president of all time
Who knew?
It is consistent with my firm conviction that nobody hates war more than soldiers who have seen it up close. It is the ultiimate obscenity of mankind.
I think one of the most interesting things about his career was his Presidency of Columbia University. He took the job having been assured he would have no fundraising obligations --- he hated the prospect of asking for money. He arrived on the job and found out that the school was in dire financial straits and went out and promptly raised a ton of money. He did not whine and say "I inherited this mess" he just got the job done.
Now Columbia does not allow ROTC on its campus.
Douglas MacArthur gave his "farewell" address to the corps and he has told
me that it was the most inspirational speech he ever witnessed.
And in that address, MacArthur said:
"This does not mean that you are warmongers. On the contrary, the soldier
above all other people prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the
deepest wounds and scars of war. "
I grew up in the military and I have seen this firsthand. It's no surprise
that Colin Powell was alone among Bush's advisors in his concerns about
going to war in Iraq.
My wife comes from New Zealand and reports the American obsession with where you went to school is very, uh, American. Indeed.
Sincerity, and clarity in communication, those are at least as good if not better measurements. Though I'm sure there are others.
G
Bevo?
I was lucky enough to get an internship with a great startup company after my Junior year and convinced them to hire me at the end of the internship so that I didn't have to go back to school. Now with all of my daily energy focused on doing the things in my day job that I had always been planning to do for my own company eventually, I find myself more immersed in this world and it is easier to focus on those same things for my own projects at night.
Long story short, once you have overcome the fear of taking a risk and doing something different from what your friends and family expect, don't be afraid to immerse yourself in that world fully because trying to straddle both sides of the line for a safe exit into the entrepreneurial scene will only prolong your exit until you do decide to take the leap.
firm in my post
If parents would focus more on "who" their child becomes, rather than "what" they become, they'd work harder to expose them to a wide variety of things so that they could find an interest, something they care about and something they care to do. It's about letting them explore those passions and finding the right "fit" of educational institution for them where their passions can flourish.
Entrepreneurship ultimately has to be sourced through internal motivation and passion.
I was lucky to start out college as a math major and "had to" take a computer science class. I managed to fall in love with the stuff and went on from there to practice the art for a while, then went back to school (part-time at night for an MBA) for the business skills I lacked (since I was ultra-focused on the tech and left no room for the liberal arts thinking). I was in a startup during the MBA in 1987 when the market was crashing, but since we were doing engineering, I didn't really see it or feel it and we pushed ahead.
I lucked out to be in Silicon Valley from 1996 through 2000 and left before the lights went out. I moved back east to NJ and did some angel investing for a while and now work at Princeton in the engineering school. With our son graduating from 8th grade, we'll now move back to CA (where it's warmer, thank goodness) and I'll take a "gap" year to figure out what the next chapter will be.
In the end, it's about finding what you love to do and finding the right people to do it with. Much of the time, it boils down to being in the right place at the right time with the right people and following your gut with gusto.
I'll end this ramble now...
Great post, Fred.
I reblogged my favorite part of it at fredwilson.vc
http://echolot.tumblr.com/post/82271191/great-c...
I am what I am today because of my parents letting me go figure out on my own.
I think there's self-selection bias for people who drop out of school to run a company. I would bet that the success % is fairly high in the short term and even more in the long term.
It's really just a cost-benefit trade off at the end of the day, but it's really really hard (I would say impossible) to run a company and do school full time and do both on the focused level that most competitive entrepreneurs like to.
At the end of the day, it's just about purpose and individual goals.
I guess I missed all the action on this post, but that's my .02
I am an entrepreneurial person, but it was the right decision for me to study engineering and learn something I could not learn on my own (not that others can't but I wouldn't have) Currently, I am back in school working on an MBA. It was a hard decision but I believe there is a lot of value in an MBA for entrepreneurs. Most of the "entrepreneurship" classes are finance classes for people who want to get into VC or PE, but the management and marketing classes are excellent. The network is powerful too, not that it is worth the high cost of tuition but it helps. I started a business in November, so going back to school is not mutually exclusive with entrepreneurship.
On a side note, I also work for an Angel investing group. Of the 50 or so businesses I have been a part of evaluating since October, the only time anyone has cared about education is when the company is not in the Midwest (the group only invests in local companies unless it is founded by a UChicago alumni).
Our startup/VC funded culture strives on the 1-100 get funded and out of the funded, 1-10 return money to VCs/give notch on the belt to young entrepreneur. Would these odds tell you to forgo the insurance of a college education? Maybe cool to ponder the modification of education but I would not put out a myth about successful entrepreneur = no college education.
and it's not a myth. i was reporting on the stats from our portfolio and another VC's portfolio
it's fact that a significant percentage of successful (and venture backed) entrepreneurs don't have college degrees. most of them didn't even go to college.
I had the privilege of going to a quirky school for the gifted and a prestigious student society with all sorts of tremendously talented characters. Some of them graduated at the top of their class in one of the top engineering schools in the country ; some of them didn't even graduate high school. Doesn't mean one of them is more gifted than the other.
And certainly meeting entrepreneurs now, their degrees have no correlation to their success.
It's very important to be an educated person. It's important to have a solid grounding in history and literature and science and math.
College is one tool to become educated but it is by no means the only one. In the old days you needed college to access libraries (information and data) and to find colleagues to discuss the information you're absorbing to provide context and to challenge your thinking. University brings those things together. But in this day and age the geographic convergence of these things is no longer the only way (or necessarily the best way) to bring them together.
Fundamentally education is about teaching you to teach yourself. You also need a peer group to share, discuss, and debate the ideas you learn.
FWIW, I run across an awful lot of college graduates who IMO, are not well educated
You either have it or you don't.
I am sure there are a few, but it's extremely rare in my experience
SO let's get this right:
- 20% (1/5th) of your portfolio companies are founded by people without degrees.
- Conversely, 80% (4/5th) are founded with people *with* degrees.
- In both Canada and the States, approximately only 20% (1/5th) of the population goes to University.
- You do not discriminate based on University attendance or lack thereof when choosing portfolio companies.
Thus out of the entire swath of society, 80% of your portfolio is coming from a small, 20%, subset. That is a useful statistic to you and should be an indication that there is, indeed, something very special about college. If you discovered that, say, 80% of all your portfolio companies were founded by people from semi-rural areas (I''m guessing that's somewhere near 20% of the population) wouldn't you start to look at that and wonder what's special about life in semi-rural areas?
80 from 20. Sounds like a frightening stat about wealth distribution in america, but the point is this: Going to College gives you a MUCH better chance of starting a company that will be a part of Fred Wilson's portfolio.
Sure it's not 100% guaranteed - but nothing in life is guaranteed. We can only make calculated risks. And the calculations are clearly in favor of school on this one.
My post was intended to clarify that a college education is not a
prerequisite for a successful entrepreneurial career
I imagine that many young people out there feel like they need a college
degree to be taken seriously in business
Our society is biased to believe that the 20% who goes to university are the
"best and brightest" and therefore if you are not one of them, you will face
tough going
That's just not true in the case of startups and entrepreneurship
We'll invest in anyone who has shown they can make the "impossible" possible
regardless of their education transcript
Idit?
I understand your sentiment. A friend of who "only" has a masters and bachelor degrees in bioengineering (from two Ivies) was initially shunned by Ph.D's a biomedical start-up he was working at was hiring.
Realistically, let's consider that a company is a LOT more than pure technology, and in fact it is very rare for that to be a deciding factor. Let's also throw out a myth that a start-up must be founded by an 18-year old (as many on this thread already mentioned). What's required in an entrepreneur in passion and discipline directed towards success in their field of interest.
I see no reason the following hypothetical would necessarily fail: Work in a lab as a high-school student and either stay there or go to college. Continue working with labs/professors/researchers, become involved in some product, or aspect (sales, operations), and pursue it with a local company on a full-time basis. Grow in these capacities until you have credibility and/or funds to launch your own venture, either co-founding with some researcher or hiring one as head of R&D.
Finally, I think your last paragraph is closer to the truth than the first one. There is a big difference between "a college degree (or two, or even three, in fact)." and "a strong grounding in both the fundamentals of a subject and the cutting-edge of human knowledge". I do not, perhaps incorrectly, see a particular difference between any industry: life sciences, information technology, furniture making, or art in terms of requirements for success or internal complexity of the product or business. Every time I get involved in some industry, I am impressed with how intricate and complex they are. There is always a place for a person who understands an industry, can sell, or provide vision or operational management - none of which *require* a degree. The best people learn all the time, formally and informally, and actually receiving a formal degree is not something they care to pursue for its own sake.
I think that if Fred titled his post "One thing you don't have to have to be an entrepreneur..." the comment list would be a lot shorter :)
Having gone through two, very different MSc's (finance and Intellectual Capita Management) I can speak from experience when saying that I've seen this methodolgy kill many entrepreneurial sparks, but I've also seen the light!
My first degree checked all the boxes of the critics in this thread. It was all about teaching the models and emphasizing that the education is to make us "prepared for work". The biggest error in that is that it is all about confirmity and assigning all students a place in the accountant/controller/inv banker pipeline. The second error is that it placed all the student's there slightly afraid that they don't know enough - when they frankly know very many "wrong things". That degree was great fun and I met friends for life but it did not teach me finance. Just look at the UK where history, arts and philosophy majors take up many of the analyst roles at banks - just because the finance knowledge needed to perform that role will be thought to them at work - it is not something (and quite frankly that would be rather hard) that they are supposed to know.
To summarize then - it made me believe I knew finance (which I didn't), it did not encourage "out of the box thinking" (which interested me), it did not stimulate more learning (because more learning in that setting is reading more of the same streamlined stuff) and it did not encourage entrepreneurial mindsets (not in teaching and certainly not when writing papers or exams).
Over then to the "light at the end of the tunnel".
My second degree was all about the flipside of that coin. They know they cannot teach us experience - so they don't try to. They know lectures and assignments are not the efficient or stimulating environment to teach technical skills. The second education was all about making us understand, question and challenge "the system", i.e. the norms in which things are done. This was all in a very technical (business, law and technology) field focused on Intellectual property, so a technical teaching mindset was not far fetched.
This new way of teaching us a way to look at the world/a problem/ a business opportunity was and is inspiring. And has also triggered us to learn even more - to go outside of our comfort zone because learning more in this setting is to learn new stuff and new appraoches and new examples. So now, soon graduating, the whole mindset of the class is to see opportunities in problems and finding flaws in the prevailing norm structures. In my mind this is, at least, very close to what many people above describe as an entrepreneur.
So I stonlgy believe that it is what colleges teach today that, rightfully, spurred Fred's comment and this wonderful thread, not the "be or not to be" of a degree per se.
I take perverse pleasure in accepting invitations to guest lecture at B-Schools in their Entrepreneurship classes, to make this point, The good news is there are always genetic entrepreneurs in the classes, and their eyes light up in knowing ways when you verbalize what they already know themselves - you can't teach this stuff.
Consider of the kids you knew growing who were really, really funny. Anecdotally at least, it seems to me that the "class clown" with the outstanding sense of humor and timing was typically compensating for something else.. Kids who don't get enough attention from their parents, or have body image problems, or kids that have social or academic challenges of one kind or another. Something is generally lacking.
Entrepreneurship, at least as described here (early stage founders) seems to be similarly based on a series of deficiencies as well: Look at some of the comments people have made: "Couldn't sit through a class"; "Doesn't want a boss". I don't think entrepreneurship is necessarily a genetic gift per se -- rather it seems like a more risky path for those who *must* take significant risks to succeed, because they would likely founder on a traditional path.
I say this as a successful entrepreneur, and a not-so successful corporate guy. I certainly respect and admire the successful entrepreneur. But lets not pretend it is a "gift" -- it is the far riskier and harder road--and an education makes a huge difference in the downswings.
Many think its a development disorder
I think its a gift
But it's all in the minds of the person who has it and those around him/her
The venture I’m working on now has picked up some steam. I was put in touch with business graduate professors in a college here in NYC. One of the professors volunteered a few MBA students to work for us and do various tasks. These are grad finance/marketing students. This is not an internship, as the professor would manage the students for us and their work would be graded (not by us). All of this work would be done for free and I couldn’t refuse!
So the professor invited me to speak to the class. As I’m speaking to the class, I’m looking at these aspiring MBA students and here I am without an MBA giving them work. This made me think. It strikes me that it’s possible to pick up the lessons you get in an MBA in the real world: building things, trying, failing & repeating – without actually being exposed to the lectures/tests.
After the talk the professor came up to me and said “did you study marketing?” And I answered “formally no.” He looked at me puzzled and said you described a market in the “exact way that we teach it.” And I’m thinking that’s because I was torn apart by investors & partners and had to learn HOW to answer those questions in order to succeed… (I can’t say I’m successful yet though – it’s too early to tell)
Awesome article, forwarding it on to friends and family! I finished one year of school then dropped to pursue my business full time and now I make $200k+ per year running my website.
I also work as the Community Manager with one your ventures, Covestor :) Hope all is well!
Life is for living, not lecturing. ;)
I knew I could always go to college if I don't suceed in business by my mid-20s, maybe even late 20s.
I saved up some money and started my business by age 21. Now, I have this wonderful business and i'm earning an income of around 110k (in LA though) and I would be happy going to work for 10 hours everyday until I turn 70. But, what if my business fails in 15 years? Do I start all over again? I wouldn't enjoy college in my late 30s.
Then again, I would hate having any job I was employed in lol, i like being self employed
so college wasn't for me, busines is for me
its just failing is what i'm afraid of... what do you guys think if my business failed randomly? i could always just start over (with a new idea), right?
I am gonna reblog it at fredwilson.vc
- Hard work, how to push through and meet a deadline, and how to juggle multiple assignments at once
- Social skills: being around lots of like minded, intelligent people sparked my intellect outside of class, and taught me to express my ideas about a variety of topics. I also learned how to interact and get along with a wide variety of personality types, from the type-A go getter to the stoner frat guy.
- Networking: through my classes and extra-cirriculars, I now have a network of smart, driven people that I'm connected with across America and across multiple industries
- Freedom: College gave me four years during which my "real" responsibilities were relatively minimal. I was able to use this time to explore a number of different entrepreneurial ventures (one of which I was able to exit), with no pressure to earn a living, and relatively little outside distraction
- Personality: Had I not gone to college, I wouldn't have a word to say when a conversation turned to literature, I wouldn't know a word of Spanish, and I would likely never have developed my interest in music beyond listening to the radio
In summary, college may not be for everyone, and I don't think it is by any means a prerequisite for success. However if you have the opportunity to attend, don't pass it up lightly. You may learn more than you're expecting to.
First, college only "cranks out workers" if you let it. While the actual knowledge taught in lectures didn't help me much, the challenge of working on some extremely hard problems with very smart people undoubtedly structured my thought process. I didn't go into college planning on working for someone else forever, and I didn't leave college with that mindset either.
Second, most of my network stems from colleagues, alumni, or people with whom my degree holds clout.
I'd say an undergraduate degree has the same value as an MBA. If you go to a top school, the clout and the network have a lot of value. If you go to any other school, you're probably better off stopping out or skipping IF you're mature enough to build knowledge and a valuable network on your own.
I always shudder when I hear some young folks boasting about skipping college. A lot of you should think twice, unless you're already working on something you're extremely passionate about. Not starting college and not graduating college are very different things.
Secondarily though, I think an ability to think analytically and in a structured manner is crucially important. Some of the smartest people I know, who didn't care much for doing well in school, do have a difficult time organizing their thoughts.
So I think the value in higher education is not in the substance but in how it teaches you to bring structure and organization to decision-making.
I understand and appreciate Fred’s point – you don’t need a college education to be a great entrepreneur.
I do, however, find many of the comments on this thread unnerving. For all of the shortcoming and pitfalls of higher education, the strong anti-college sentiment on this thread is troubling.
There are a number of critically important benefits that higher education offers that have been shortchanged through much of this dialogue:
1) Optionality - True, a great entrepreneur will have the innate creativity and drive to solve and overcome challenges faced. But what about the 99% of people who are not natural-born entrepreneurs by the age of 18? Having a college degree provides individuals with optionally – the ability to position oneself as a viable candidate for any one of a number of jobs. While optionality might be value-less for a successful entrepreneur who doesn’t need or care about having multiple career options, it is invaluable for one who finds himself struggling to succeed.
2) Knowledge – You don’t need traditional schooling to gain knowledge, but many of the higher-education mechanisms do a fairly good job at imparting knowledge in an efficient and effective manner. My #1 reason for attending business school was to gain a holistic and broad-based understanding of business. In contrast to *most* (or vast majority) of jobs in which ones business exposure is relatively myopic, school allowed me to gain both a breadth and depth of exposure. This scope of perspective is a critical advantage at this stage of my career.
3) Exploring new interests and opportunities – College provides a unique forum in which to explore and discover new interests and passions. It is remarkable how often we hear stories of students taking one-off classes on a whim, falling in love with the subject and then dedicating their careers to it. Even if the newly discovered passion does not lead to a career, it offers life-long benefits to the person in real and meaningful ways. From my experience in the workforce, it is much more difficult to meaningfully explore new subjects and interests with the looming time-and mind-crunch of work deliverables hanging over. For this reason alone, many find the personal development aspect of the college experience invaluable.
4) Creative environment – While I can respect and appreciate many of the criticisms of higher education on this forum, I strongly challenge the notion that college or grad school stifles creativity and innovation. In my experience, academic institutions are, in many ways, unique bastions of creative expression and innovation. My college professors constantly encouraged us to question established theory and accepted practice, to tackle difficult problems with creative solutions and to challenge ourselves to push the limits of what we thought was possible. It was an environment where innovative (albeit sometimes outlandish) ideas flowed freely. While not all colleges are created equally, there are many out there that are wonderful creative environments.
My point with this long comment is not to suggest that everyone should attend college. People are beautifully unique and different, and many do not need, desire or value the benefits of traditional higher education. And of course, there are many flaws with the current systems that must be corrected. That said, let’s appropriately recognize and respect what traditional higher education can bring to the table.
But, I think what needs to be highly, highly stressed is that this type of decision is about the whole personhood of a young adult. The over simplifications here are very misguiding.
I think that if an 18 year old asks if they should begin a start-up with their great idea or go to college, the questions to ask them should not resemble that Forbes.com test in any way.
A more important questions at that point in life is "Who are you?" How much do they know about other cultures or world views? Do they have the global insight for any sense of corporate responsibility? Theses are questions of identity that too many business people do not ask themselves.
I was fortunate to go to school on scholarship, which gave me enormous flexibility. I would not give up the extensive research I did in Asian art history for the world. It has nothing to do with what I do with my career, but much to do with who I am. The latter is more important.
Unfortunately a college education doesn't always do that best
For the price you pay in time and money, what else could you get?
David Karp, the founder of tumblr (at 19) quit HS at 16 and moved to tokyo to live and work
he's 21 now. kids his age are graduating from college and he's already done a lot of living
By the way, in a twist of irony, I now serve on the State Board of Education, and I am working hard to change the system for the better, but those reforms do not move at Internet speed...
This post should be required reading for anyone in college or high school. Even if you plan to attend college, you should be aware of the path not chosen. It'll help you make the most of the college experience.
I have ended up working for companies though and not a big fan, I gave up my company and traveled the world a few years and when I came back I just worked for a few years... I am still working but working on a side project right now. I am using the money from the job as capital.
So, it was good to get exposed there...but not sure to finish...
Hey if I could just take classes and not pay to "certify" my knowledge, it would be no problem and I love to take classes, but it doesn't help at all in what I want to do though. I'm a travel junkie and working in corp world or typical jobs just doesn't do it for me, simply not enough time off.