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Are you building a company, or your credentials?

geofflewis.org

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Re: Are you building a company, or your credentials?

#31

Post by dvdhsu »

[deleted] wrote: post #22
alaskamiller wrote: post #8

Getting into and surviving top notch elite business schools requires a whole lot of credentials. The guys and gals that spent their lives accrediting themselves with clubs, sports, extracurriculars now want to join in on the entrepreneur revolution David Fincher crafted for them. To do so they're applying their way of "success" to this new field. Because that's all they know. And as long as there's money, there'll be…

[deleted]

Yes. HN was once flooded with Erlang submissions to make it look boring.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=512145

As for your comment, I don't understand why you're bringing race in.

Re: Are you building a company, or your credentials?

#32

Post by chops »

[deleted] wrote: post #22
alaskamiller wrote: post #8

Getting into and surviving top notch elite business schools requires a whole lot of credentials. The guys and gals that spent their lives accrediting themselves with clubs, sports, extracurriculars now want to join in on the entrepreneur revolution David Fincher crafted for them. To do so they're applying their way of "success" to this new field. Because that's all they know. And as long as there's money, there'll be…

[deleted]

It happened with Erlang a few years ago.

http://thinkingnectar.com/2009/hacker-news-is-funny-of-erlan...

Re: Are you building a company, or your credentials?

#33

Post by bostonvaulter2 »

ma2rten wrote: post #27
exratione wrote: post #25

The article makes exactly the right realization: Y Combinator is heading in the direction of scholasticism. I wrote an article recently on this topic, which I quote below: http://www.exratione.com/2012/01/the-future-of-the-venture-c... The present direction of some incubators is towards the concept of schools, in the older sense of the word. To some eyes present experiments look like an early stage in the development…

The article makes exactly the right realization: Y Combinator is heading in the direction of scholasticism. Aren't you just reading into it what you want to read? I don't think that was the point of the article at all. Anyway, I think that school-like institutions for entrepreneurship with a formal process that you need to go though are destined to fail. They go against everything that entrepreneurship stands for. As…

At least it will be obvious when that happens since the startups will start failing.

Re: Are you building a company, or your credentials?

#36

Post by Drbble »

mkramlich wrote: post #29
rjurney wrote: post #21

Lets look at this from the other perspective. That of big companies hiring product teams. Educating, finding, hiring, training, cultivating and retaining talent is extremely difficult. Companies recruit at colleges, where students have worked hard enough on their credentials to gain admittance and even harder getting good grades and joining clubs and participating in activities. They will identify a few good candidat…

Anything that lets us bypass bullshit, makework and proxies-for-things-we-want and instead go directly for substance, realwork, and the-things-we-want, is a good thing and should be done much more of. Also, instead of a "student" throwing $50k at an institution in order to "learn" and gain credentials I'd much rather that the student be paid $50k by an institution and learn and gain a better sort of credentials: buil…

Joining a large tech company today, one can get hired for $1 million on a four year schedule, after incredibly higher odds of payout than a startup. The expected value of income is not the reason to found a startup.

Re: Are you building a company, or your credentials?

#38

Post by larrys »

hluska wrote: post #28
exratione wrote: post #25

The article makes exactly the right realization: Y Combinator is heading in the direction of scholasticism. I wrote an article recently on this topic, which I quote below: http://www.exratione.com/2012/01/the-future-of-the-venture-c... The present direction of some incubators is towards the concept of schools, in the older sense of the word. To some eyes present experiments look like an early stage in the development…

That is well written, congratulations! Here's a bit of personal disclosure. I did a business degree (marketing major) from a mediocre institution. Immediately after graduation, I started a company. It failed miserably, but I learned significantly more about business killing a company over the course of a year than I learned studying business in a university. My business degree armed me with a dubious credential, a le…

I went to one of those elite programs at an Ivy League school. The advantage you get isn't the education (from my experience and observation). It's being around other enthusiastic (non slacker) high achievers who worked hard to get there and want to be there. And connections and all the things others talk about.

Knowing that you went to the top ranked program not opens many doors (bankers were impressed when I had to borrow money) but also gives you the confidence that extends well beyond education.

In a way it's similar to driving up to high school being the quarterback and driving a fancy new car (was not me but I can only imagine). You feel good about yourself (in your own mind) and that confidence affects others as well.

As far as learning about business and how to run one? I didn't learn that from the business program. I learned that working during high school and college and from having a family business and other companies that I worked for.

Re: Are you building a company, or your credentials?

#40

Post by donw »

larrys wrote: post #38
hluska wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is well written, congratulations! Here's a bit of personal disclosure. I did a business degree (marketing major) from a mediocre institution. Immediately after graduation, I started a company. It failed miserably, but I learned significantly more about business killing a company over the course of a year than I learned studying business in a university. My business degree armed me with a dubious credential, a le…

I went to one of those elite programs at an Ivy League school. The advantage you get isn't the education (from my experience and observation). It's being around other enthusiastic (non slacker) high achievers who worked hard to get there and want to be there. And connections and all the things others talk about. Knowing that you went to the top ranked program not opens many doors (bankers were impressed when I had to…

Speaking as somebody that graduated from a lower-ranked school, I completely agree.

I learned a ton from my last failed startup. So much, in fact, that it took a six-month vacation afterwards to really digest the experience, and I don't think that I'm boasting when I say that one failed startup, one where you pour everything into it, is equivalent or better to an MBA.

What I didn't get, and I had to work for, was the credential.

The only people that recognize one of my schools (Waseda) as being anything special are all in either Japan or China.

So when I go to meet a client or a banker, I don't have the credential card in my hand, and have to rely on my network, history, and general ability to get along with pretty much everybody.

While these have gotten me along pretty well, I do regret making the naïve assumption that schools were about education, rather than about the people you meet.

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