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Comment by ryanwaggoner | Hacker News Reader

Thanks so much for posting all this awesome info...very inspiring.

we would have been 10x bigger if I hadn't gone to college, so that is my opportunity cost.

Can you elaborate on this a bit? Are you saying that your growth curve was shifted back by n years (and you'll be 10x in n years), or that it was fundamentally changed as a result of going to college?

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Mix of both. Growth curve shifted back n years (in my case 8 years - I did a PhD too, whose main utility was in coming to the US and then realize that PhD was a waste of time - all I can say is that I am a bit slow!). And those were some of the best years, so there is a fundamental change in the growth curve also.

The thing I most admire about America is the can-do spirit. I am sad that the education system in America is "Asianizing" rapidly, in the spirit of "We have to compete with the Chinese/Koreans/Indians ..." That's not what got America to where it got - it was the can-do "hacker" ethic, and the climate of freedom where that ethic flourished.

I completely agree and also think that one of the main reason behind US success has been the "can do" and "hacker" culture and freedom to express yourself. I also think that if more of this culture gets hold in India(instead of rat race for degrees and titles), we can see lot more product based companies (instead of service based) being setup in india. There is no shortage brain power in India, it's the creativity and hacker ethics that needs ramp up. I am really proud of the fact that you have established a product based company(successful one) being run from India.

"Asianizing?" I go to UCI (second year is coming up) and I'm not familiar by what you mean by that. Sure we have a sizable Asian population here, but the UCI system does have a climate of freedom though not as much as UC Berkeley, maybe that's a good thing.

I meant mostly at the high school level. Particularly in the "high end" school districts. Loads of home work, drills, competitive test taking ... because, you know, the Chinese/Koreans are all "way ahead" and score so well in international competitive examinations. I would ignore those examinations (frankly I would ignore the spelling bee too!) but newspapers love such stuff, and scare the middle-class with "we are falling behind the Asians".

College hasn't gone Asian-style yet in the US.

The reason I bring that up is that due to the way the Indian IT sector works, we don't get the best test takers (they are grabbed by the big brand name service companies). So we get people who generally did't do well in various kinds of tests. I count that as a blessing :-)

Agreed.

As an aside, I am impressed that someone who went to an IIT (and so had to do well in the most competitive exam in the world) sees the dark side of these tests.

Interestingly, India just scrapped competitive exams for 10th grade (CBSE) which is a great first step.

This is definitely happening in the US and around the world. In fact, I think perhaps you're being too charitable towards American colleges. But then I suppose it's all relative.

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