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Comment by sakopov | Hacker News Reader

All luck aside, i wonder how much being an MIT graduate played a role in successfully getting DropBox off the ground. I always get the thought that walking out of a reputable school opens a lot of opportunities like this, which is why i read articles like this with a grain of salt.

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There is an advantage, but perhaps not the one you think. The advantage is not the brand, but that you know lots of smart people you can recruit to join you. Which Drew did, starting with Arash.

The brand is only an advantage in public perception (which usually means nothing in terms of company success at the startup stage), and maybe some level of increased respect from investors (which, as you have pointed out, really doesn't mean much, since they act as sheep. A great company is the way to get investors).

Completely agree that the major value of great schools is better schools attract smarter people, who often make better founders.

Agree with this. Brand is a big advantage in public perception and it's easier for top-school grads to get coveted meetings/intros since they are part of the "family." But at the end of the day, all that matters is the quality of the work. And there are tons of people who never attended MIT/Stanford/Harvard/etc. that are extremely successful at what they do and have built.

Like you said, great schools attract smarter people (not all of them!) and that makes for a more competitive environment, which in turn churns out more driven/analytical kids.

I know a TON of idiots who went to Stanford and Berkeley. And I know a dozen or so extremely successful entrepreneurs who never went to college.

You know a ton of idiots who went to Stanford and Cal (and aren't including Cal athletes, had to, UCLA grad)?

Seconded. I went to a High School that consistently has the second highest SAT scores in the country, and was able to get in because I lived in an area that has trouble filling their allocated slots at the school. It has been a tremendous advantage in my endeavors that my social group and network contains so many people so much smarter than me.

But if you are interviewing a team and realize that the quality of their 3 first hired engineers will be critical to their success, then you consider that being on MIT, Stanford or Harvard might help them recruit this talent among their social circles, which is always easier and more effective when you are not a hit yet.

There it is, you are taking the brand in account, even if it is not completely fetichism, because it's experience based. If you count on this advantage before it happened, than it is brand.

We don't though. It's rounding error compared to things like the characteristics of the founders, and what they're working on.

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