The Pernicious Myth that You Don't Need College to Be an Entrepreneur | Hacker News Reader

The Pernicious Myth that You Don't Need College to Be an Entrepreneur

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40 pointstokenadult67 comments

>""He tells the story of a high school teacher whose students confronted him with the same question: "Why do we need to learn this?" The teacher replied, "You don't. You need to learn to ask just one question." The piqued students implored him to tell what that was. His answer: "Would you like fries with that?""

This is deplorable. As someone who didn't go to college, the fact that the author acts like they're right because of the status quo, and because Thiel's first start-ups weren't successful is absolutely laughable.

I love how their main argument relies on the fact that the perception of the degree is what's most important. While this may be true, this is simply a perception, and can easily be changed. It's not a "fact".

Secondly, if Thiel's lack of success from his ventures proves anything, it's that he needs work finding the right people to invest in. Just because a small subset of adventurous young adults failed their first time (understandable) doesn't mean that all young adults need the experience of college before they can fail/succeed in their first venture.

Lastly, let's see if the author is bias. Well, they're an academic, are adjuncts in two colleges... I find it interesting that an Academic intellectual has a problem understanding that people can be didactic learners and learn what they want on their own.

"Would you like fries with that?" - Sure, I'd love to buy some fries with my great job that I got right out of high school because I ACTUALLY worked towards my craft in high school. I doubt you can do that with an English, Psychology, Sociology, or even a regular Science degree. What this really sounds like is that college is important if you want to become an engineer. That's obvious. Most other things? Not so much.

http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm

Unemployment literally doubles if you forgo a college degree.

Doubles, what, if you do nothing but what everyone else is doing (pursue the same jobs, etc).

Thiel is presenting an alternative for those who dare. Find something you love, submerge yourself in it, and try to make a business of it. Worse case scenario you fail, but you then have a world of managerial, technical and fundraising experience that you can take on to the next idea you dream of.

Some people are gifted do'ers, some are just gifted learners. For the former, why delay your skillset learning in an artificial college environment?

Of course it does. But is that because of the degree itself or because of the types of people who tend to get college degrees vs. those who don't? I would need to see the outliers and the full data to really come to a conclusion.

12.5% of people is 1 in 8. That's way too many to be considered outliers. More detailed data: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat07.htm

I hate to be the "correlation != causation" guy, but that definitely applies to the way you're using this data.

What I meant by that last comment is: whatever the reason is for being unemployed, it must be pretty common.

Remember that the schools, at least where I come from, have a system in place to select the "winners", so the correlation is not surprising. I remember in 9th grade, and possibly even before that, it was already starting to become pretty clear who was going tend towards being more successful in life and the schools pushed those people into the college direction. Certain groups who were less favored for success were actively prevented from going into college, even, by way of not being given the necessary credits.

So, it is kind of like you choosing race horses, ignoring all the horses with broken legs, and then proclaiming the only reasons the horses with broken legs did not win was because they were not selected by you to win. Perhaps it is just because the horses had broken legs?

Correlation doesn't imply causation, i.e the people who tend to complete large amounts of education would have succeeded whether they had done that education at all.

I'm not saying that that is the actor here, but those statistics don't prove causation.

I don't doubt this, due to the perception many employers have about the value of degrees. However, if you're just going to start your own business, then this perception is not an immediate concern.

Of course, if you fail in your entrepreneurial efforts then that's another story.

Interpreting the data that way assumes everyone is equal, which I think most would agree is not true in the real world. There are a lot of factors that prevent people from graduating, or even attending in the first place, that also seem related to what employers look for in the work place (determination, natural ability, etc).

What does the data look like if you limit the set exclusively to those who are fully capable of graduating from college?

Seriously? You could also state "Unemployment literally doubles if you're Black or African American." (http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat07.htm)

The way statistics on unemployment, earnings, etc by degree level are being used is disgraceful. It's correlation does not imply causation at the basest level. It's more likely the higher your social and economic background is, the more college you can afford, and the better job you can get.

I see so many people with tons of student debt for a degree that is useless for finding employment. Unless your profession requires a degree (laywer, doctor...) or you can go for free via grant or wealthy parents, most people would be better off entering the work place or starting in a trade. You can always go back to school when you can afford it.

There are A LOT of college graduates out there asking "Would you like fries with that?" to non-grads.

>Seriously? You could also state "Unemployment literally doubles if you're Black or African American."

Your race is not something you can (or should) do anything about, but you can very well try to get a college degree.

>It's correlation does not imply causation at the basest level. It's more likely the higher your social and economic background is, the more college you can afford, and the better job you can get.

That sounds like a direct causual link. Richer -> Degree -> Job. How does "correlation does not imply causation" come into play at all? It's exactly because of being rich that you can get into a better education, and it's because of getting into a better education that you can get into a better job.

>Unless your profession requires a degree (laywer, doctor...)

It's not only the profession that requires a degree. A lot of employeers, nay, most, require a degree too. Especially for higher end jobs.

It's more likely the higher your social and economic background is, the more college you can afford, and the better job you can get.

In our society, getting a college degree has been one of the best ways to improve your social and economic standing. Being the first person in your family to go to college is a huge deal, because it means you're entering a whole different social level.

According to the data in your link, for a "Black or African American", the difference in unemployment from high school graduation to college graduation is 13.4% to 6.3%. That's half, just like I said!

Coldtea: He is saying that there are obvious lurker (or "confounding") variables. It could be that not getting a degree is caused by being poor (or black, etc.) AND that not getting a job is caused by being poor. So not having a degree and not having a job may appear to have a high correlation when in fact they are both driven by a third variable (socio-economic/race/etc.). Look up Simpson's paradox.

so many possible replies. just one is: learn about the distinction between correlation and causation. :-)

(and as a bonus, this is one of the zillions of things which can be learned before/outside/without/after college.)

Lies, damn lies, and statistics.

I have a GED and 1 year of college. I'm 30 and close to breaking $200K this year between my day gig and consulting.

I'm not saying you don't exist. I'm saying you're rare.

I don't disagree with this. I'm saying that a) it can be done b) the status quo rallies against people without a degree "because how could you ever work this job without one" and c) there are plenty of people who are employed who wasted their time on a degree, but that degree isn't used for their career or current position.

TL;DR The education/career relationship in the US is all fucked up.

The modern world was shaped by people that either didn't attend college, or did so briefly:

http://collegedropoutshalloffame.com/

Interesting resource, thanks!

Is it reasonable, though, to assume that these people were successful because they dropped out? I imagine we could come up with a couple more lists, one of people who were successful and graduated from college, and another of people who were unsuccessful and dropped out.

I think what it specifically means is that you can be very successful without college, that the lack of it isn't an inherently limiting factor. Not that they were successful due to the lack of it.

It means that some people can be successful thus. Some people also win the lottery. For the rest of us, it's wise to have a backup plan that offers some mitigation of downside risk.

From that page: "Of the top 400 richest Americans in 2011, 27 graduated from high school but did not attend college. Another 36 were college dropouts."

In other words 84.25% of the top 400 richest Americans graduated from college. I'm not sure how that's an endorsement for dropping out of or skipping college.

Most likely 84.25% of everybody earning more than $100,000 per year probably graduated from college. That simply jives with modern America post WW2, as a nation America manufactures college degrees.

It's not about endorsing dropping out. It's about the fact that you can absolutely succeed without college. There is no one path, there is no "right" way.

Go down that immense list of people for whom college was nearly or entirely meaningless: from Jobs to Carmack, from Rockefeller to Carnegie, from Gates to Wayne Huizenga, from Renault to William Hanna, from Sheldon Adelson to Richard Branson, and on it goes.

And I'd bet money that of the 400 richest Americans who did go to college, a very large percentage came from a fairly silver spoon kind of background.

According to Gallop, the top 1% is comprised of:

* 27% high school or less

* 24% bachelors degree

* 49% post-graduate degree

When we talk about college in this context, we really should specify post-graduate college. Leaving people to believe that just having a degree is enough really skews reality.

>the fact that the author acts like they're right because of the status quo

Well, you do understand that "status quo" means "how things are".

So this is like you saying that he only "acts like he is right" because this "reality" thing agrees with him.

No, status quo means "the existing state" (i.e. how things are right now).

They have been this way for centuries, nay milenia, so it's not like it's some volatile truth that an angry comment will change.

(Not to mention he haven't told us why it SHOULD change).

Interesting article, considering I dropped out of school yesterday (literally).

The reason I dropped out isn't because I'm lazy or incompetent; I'm actually 30 credits (two semesters) away from graduation. But as I look at what my class schedule would be, I realize that the bubble they're trying to force me into takes me a different direction than where I really want to go. I don't think I could handle the cognitive dissonance of that realization day after day.

I love technology and mass media, and I want to go into Internet marketing - I've worked in Internet marketing for five years, so I ended up in the communications department, which was perfect. The program was great - we would discuss how media is changing, work on being creative, study design, understand why people do the things they do; it was great. But then, after my 2nd year, it got specific to make sure we could get a job at an advertising agency - to make sure we stay the 2nd best school in the nation for advertising.

And now I look at my class schedule of the classes I have to take to graduate. Advanced account management? A forced internship (when I've been working in Internet marketing for five years)? Writing 150? (I tested out of that with two different AP tests and my ACT score, but it's required in the Commms program no matter what.) What college wants me to do to ensure I get a job just isn't relevant enough to what I want to learn or where I want to end up. Not to mention the fact that the company I'm a co-founder of has investors begging me to drop out of school and go full-time... it's just not a good fit. It just doesn't make sense.

I'm designing my own curriculum around the things that I want to learn. It's difficult to do and will be hard to force myself to do those things, but at least it's relevant to where I want to go.

I would remind you that copy writing is critical to advertising and the basic tenants they are teaching you aren't that different. You still need to manage leads, create conversions, follow up. You need to understand the difference between brand and product marketing and learn what it means to have a target market. You need to learn to read and do meaningful analysis on analytics using methods that aren't immediately obvious.

You need to learn a whole host of things I cant even list here because I didn't get a degree in marketing.

I understand that. To be clear, Writing 150 is the freshman writing class required for all students except those who received a 26 or more on the English section of the ACT or who got a 3 or more an AP Language or Literature test. I got a 36 (perfect score) on the English section of the ACT and a 5 (perfect score) on both the AP Literature and Language tests. I don't want to say it would be below me, as one can always improve his or her writing, but it would not be the wisest use of my time.

If you saw the syllabi of the required classes I have left you would understand why I'm dropping out.

Just talk to the prof and ask for a pass. It seems like you are dropping out for some other reason and looking for an excuse. Just finish your degree and work on the side.

I finished my Masters @ Berkeley while working at a startup -- doing both at the same time provide great crossover.

>I'm actually 30 credits (two semesters) away from graduation.

Which means you essentially have a college education.

It's not the piece of paper you get at the end that is the education.

It is the piece of paper that is thought to bring the value of an education though. Nobody cares about the education itself. You can get that anywhere.

If you start your own business, certainly it's the education that matters, not the piece of paper.

In my personal case, I care about the education I received. I don't have the diploma framed on my wall, and I don't know if I could even find it in the basement. Maybe others care about the paper, but I don't.

One year of shit you have to do now will save you a decade of shit you have to do later.

It is entirely worth it to finish those 30 hours.

I probably will later, but turning down investment in a company I believe in to do those classes is something I can't handle right now.

30 credits doesn't equal 30 hours as far as I know. But still, I think GP should just suck it up and finish his degree, he has only a very limited amount of time to lose by doing so, and possibly much to gain from having a degree. In other words, he has limited downside and almost unlimited upside.

In the US, credits are typically by "Credit hours", which I believe is in reference to how much instruction time you have per week. A 3 credit hour class may meet 3x a week for 1 hour, or 2x a week for 1.5hr. So saying 30 credits is the same as saying 30 credit hours, which is 30 "hours" of course work. Wall clock time is higher because you have homework and other stuff, and of course a 3 hour class goes on for at least 12 weeks of instruction.

At my alma mater, Georgia Tech, they assumed 2-3 out of class hours for each in class hour. So that's 2 terms of 45 hour weeks basically

"He paid children $100,000 not to complete their college educations."

No. He paid "children" $100,000 to put off their college educations for two years, and be open-minded about not ever going back. If I recall correctly, some of the thiel fellows had already finished college.

What in this article demonstrates that you do or don't need a college education to be an entrepreneur (presumably a successful one)? The evidence as provided seems to be, "Most of Peter Thiel's college-abstainers are failing, and the few successes shouldn't really count." I feel like a lot more work needs to be put into this article before it's fit to be published.

What is the central point of this post? From what I could tell, it's roughly a mix of:

- Kids should stay in college

- Peter Thiel is doing a disservice to the college-aged

- Entrepreneurs who go to college are more successful

- Peter Thiel's program isn't as successful at TechStars (because he exclusively selects college abstainers)

- College dropouts earn less (regardless of career choice) than degree holders

Pick one, and then find data that is relevant. Even better, pick a central point and turn it in to a hypothesis. Gather data and test the hypothesis. Write an article about the findings.

I really expect better from PBS.

What is considered a Peter Thiel failure even?

Someone coming into a program like HN and not realizing net profits towards millions of dollars would be considered a failure in that circle, but even a profit of $50,000 per year would be enough to see the participants earning more than the average college graduate.

Random thought of the day:

I don't see any mention in this article of "social networks". Even if an entrepreneur can be smart and driven, can learn a wide array of technical skills on his own, if he is literally on his own he is going to be at a serious disadvantage.

Some people acquire a network of cofounders, lawyers, and financiers through their parents' social networks, and some people can acquire them online or off with no help, but maybe, maybe if you're a smart, driven individual with no pre-existing social network, it might be worthwhile to go to college to meet that special someone you could settle down and start a company with?

Colleges and universities are great places to do projects with people and build social networks. Doesn't require paying tuition!

Sure...perhaps pulling kids out of top tier schools may not necessarily be ideal.

But for the rest of us rabble, I'm sure glad I'm not struggling under $100,000 in debt.

Perhaps it's by design - America needs a docile workforce, and nothing gets you working diligently in a marginal job quite like crushing debt.

There are plenty of ways to go to top tier schools without taking on debt. A creative combination of scholarships, transfers, income, and employer benefits can take care of everything.

Among the failures of the system is the excessive emphasis on the traditional four year path, as well as the lack of clear information about the alternatives.

A(nother) problem with this discussion, is that Wadhwa and others seem to create a dichotomy where you either:

1. Graduate from a University with a B.S

2. Are an uneducated bum with no career prospects.

But there's a huge continuum between those poles. What about people with Associate degrees? Or people who start their Bachelors program, almost finish, and then drop out? Or people who start their Bachelors program, after having earned one Associate degree, then drop out, then go on to earn 2 more Associate degrees? (Yeah, that one happens, that was my story).

Of course, while I disagree with Wadhwa on a number of things, I don't entirely disagree with his notion that finishing school is important for most people, in most situations. But I think you have to be willing to accept that it's not the right path for everybody, in every situation.

I dropped out while still a junior, and my career has worked out pretty well. But I also somehow collected 3 Associate degrees over the years as well, and I went into a field (software development) that is known for being less focused on "paper credentials". So my point certainly isn't that everybody should do what I did, but just to say that these things are always judgment calls and that some people are well served by dropping out.

As for the entrepreneurship part... I've founded a startup, but it's undetermined as of yet if we'll be one of the successes or not. But I think it's interesting that some people[1] are mentioning us in the same breath as companies like Asana now, even though they were started by Facebook alums and people from Google and Microsoft, while we were founded by a college dropout with no connections or money to speak of. We may not succeed, but we've at least managed to fight out way into the game to some extent.

[1]: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/09/04/companies...

No, the pernicious myth is that college is necessarily worth the money. It's on par with the myth that home ownership is necessarily A Good Thing (tm) and an "investment."

Yup, add to the fact that the author is an academic (Adjunct/Research Associate/Vice President). No bias there I assume...

The title of the article is skewing everything. He's making an observation on the environments individuals are in. The gist, surround yourself with competent people or goto an institution that will help you find people to do this. This is what college is. A place to find like minded people.

Ignore the rest.

"Children"? Who refers to 18-22 year old men and women as children? The terminally condescending?

Interesting story. In these sorts of discussions, people always bring up, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerburg, etc. I don't know the details about most of them, but I do remember reading that Bill Gates' parents' money and position allowed him to spend a tremendous amount of time programming computers in an era when this was incredibly rare and expensive.

Perhaps college was pointless for him, but that's in large part because of his drive and access to resources that few people have. Is it pointless for you, or some other person? Well, have you spent most of high school aggressively pursuing every opportunity you could find to learn some sort of craft or business?

Nothing in this article proves anything about whether you need to go to college. If anything, it indicates that Peter Thiel may have picked the wrong kids for his experiment.

While the article certainly lacks hard proof, the "he didn't pick the right kids" argument is even worse. The ratio of successful college grads to non-grads may not show causality, but at least it is some sort of metric. Until someone can quantify "the right kids", it beats the alternative.

And if you have entrepreneurship in your blood you'll probably ignore this. Because they don't teach how to be "insanely driven" at school. If you have the opportunity to go to college I say go for it, finish and get your degree. But those that don't have the means or opportunity are in no way disqualified from starting a successful business.

I think the takeaway from this shouldn't be that college is necessary, but that you shouldn't drop out just to start a business. But again, you probably won't listen to that either.

My family taught me how to start and run a business long before college entered my mind. It's in my blood. I've started them before, one worked and two others did not. I've helped others start their own and some were successful, others not. And I will start another one eventually. When I choose to do something nothing in the world will stop me. Because that's what I think it takes.

>Because they don't teach how to be "insanely driven" at school.

No. But, then again, there are thousands of wrecks that were "insanely driven" and got nowhere.

Besides being "insanely driven" it's not a bad idea to also actually learn how to drive.

I don't know very many people that became good drivers by reading a car manual or a book at drivers ed.

I'd argue the best way to learn how to drive, is to drive. Almost everybody I know started out driving that way, on a safe road somewhere or in a parking lot, with their parents or similar. Not by reading a book about it.

>I don't know very many people that became good drivers by reading a car manual or a book at drivers ed.

That's because driving a car is an active endeavour that you learn by driving along your instructor.

The problem with your analogy is two-fold:

1) It's not like college is just about "reading books". You get to do a lot of hands-on stuff, participate in projects, do exersizes and labs etc. All those have a much wider scope and breadth that what you'd learn from a hands-on approach just on a specific problem on some startup.

2) It's also not true that all fields are about "trying it out". You won't learn calculus, linear algebra, OS internals or complexity just because you chanced upon a small real-life problem working as an intern and you googled your way out or came up with your own hacky solution. Some stuff you need to actually study, that is go through the bibliography, read past and present ideas and notions, etc. In college you get to do that without obstractions like "we need to ship next week", for numerous study subjects, and with guidance offered to boot.

I don't know a single person that I would call driven (much less insanely driven) that has been a failure.

I know some very driven people that I don't consider terribly bright who I thought for sure would be failures who have ended up owning and running successful businesses.

On the other hand, I know quite a few master degree level people and above who would be homeless if not for the generosity of others. It seems like more and more people are substituting schooling for real work.

My last startup was founded by an out of work police officer. He had the drive to make it happen and in turn investors saw that in him and invested. Just to get the meeting with the first investor he actually remortgaged his house just so he could invest in something the guy he was targeting was trying to pitch. So he gets the meeting and it leads to a great relationship and the investor became an angel, pouring millions in. He then built pretty much every piece of the puzzle himself and in turn brought me on board to quite an adventure. It started at his beach house and it's now going strong at Penn Plaza, Manhattan with about ~40 people. The guy just had it in him, some people do. And the business is still going strong.

I know it's anecdotal, but I think there is something there.

I don't want to come off like college is a waste of time. I didn't go to college but it wasn't a choice for me. But my daughter is currently in college and I hope she commits to graduating because if you have a choice, I say go. Don't drop out either. That's very short-sighted.

I just wanted to point out that a lot of entrepreneurs seem to have an innate business aptitude and a of drive, whether they go to college or not. I might be wrong.

Entreprenuer does not mean running a venture funded startup in hopes of editing for $1bn plus.

This reads more like a defensive rant than a legitimate argument. Nothing insightful here.

We really need our academics to focus on teaching people [before they get out of highschool] useful skills [critical thinking, for instance] instead of picking fights with people over a given ideology [e.g. Thiel who holds a belief/theory he is trying to prove which can only be proven once he has a preponderance of evidence/success on his side].

For instance, how to calculate the ROI of any purchase they make whether that is a college degree, a stock, or a house.

College makes sense for many people in many fields. A bunch of people get suckered into degrees from for-profit schools that aren't worth their price because they read articles like these and think 'college == superior' without thinking critically about the problem.

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