Thoughts on dropping out to do a startup
1–10 of 60 posts
Re: Thoughts on dropping out to do a startup
#2I think the value proposition of college is completely based upon whether the learning strategy of classroom lectures followed by written tests works for you. For me, reading books and attempting projects are the only way I can learn effectively. Technical lectures are incredibly boring as I can't control the pacing, and many times I find they are altogether irrelevant.
Technology moves at such a blistering pace that if you aren't working with the cutting edge tools on a regular basis, you are falling behind. Unfortunately, most classrooms insist on teaching with antiquated methodologies and overemphasize classroom time/testing versus building projects with modern tools. For example, I had to take a full year of Scheme, which in hindsight was helpful, but could have been done far more efficiently by me reading How to Design Programs [1] over the summer and attempting the exercises. School time could then have been used to teach modern methodologies via project work.
Re: Thoughts on dropping out to do a startup
#3How many startups can actually reach stable revenue? I don't mean you need to take down Facebook or Google. But there are way too many startups. Sometimes I start to think: how many customers do they get? Ten? Twenty? Thirty? How long? A year?
But on the other hand, startup is great for fresh out graduates. They learn better and quicker in theory - they are forced to adapt to the change of specs and environment. It's a great place to test your ability as an engineer and a team person. It's a challenge.
Re: Thoughts on dropping out to do a startup
#4Hopefully this is related: can anyone give some advice or input on dropping out to work in silicon valley in general? I'm not close to done (first semester freshman), but I have an internship at a certain large SV company this summer. If you were in my position, and that company offered a job, would you take it?
Re: Thoughts on dropping out to do a startup
#5A lot of the benefits he's talking about appear to assume that you're being supported financially during tertiary education (college/university) so the advice is like "if you find yourself in a situation where you are completely financially supported with a lot of free time, don't stop being financially supported in order to start a company". Which is pretty obvious advice.
Re: Thoughts on dropping out to do a startup
#6Stop thinking about "doing a startup" and start thinking about "starting a business".
Re: Thoughts on dropping out to do a startup
#7Hopefully this is related: can anyone give some advice or input on dropping out to work in silicon valley in general? I'm not close to done (first semester freshman), but I have an internship at a certain large SV company this summer. If you were in my position, and that company offered a job, would you take it?
Not to discourage you, but your education will likely benefit you far longer than most SV companies will be around. The benefits of education also brought, in my life, career choices that would not have been available without it. Choice is liberating. Who knows though, the world does seem to be changing.
Re: Thoughts on dropping out to do a startup
#8Hopefully this is related: can anyone give some advice or input on dropping out to work in silicon valley in general? I'm not close to done (first semester freshman), but I have an internship at a certain large SV company this summer. If you were in my position, and that company offered a job, would you take it?
I recently (2 months ago) dropped out to join Pinterest full-time, and I am extremely happy with my decision.
I was in a similar situation as you, except the opportunity came to me as a sophomore, instead of a freshmen. Let me preface by stating that I think college is an extremely invaluable resource to grow up and learn outside of the classroom. I did, and love it.
If I were you, assuming you do get an offer, I'd register it as a co-op with your college. I did that last year with Lift (http://lift.do), and think it was the best way to go about the situation. Here's why: it's still a full-time job, you're still technically a student, and you don't pay any tuition. If you like it, great — stay out there. If not, no harm-no foul, and go back to school.
Happy to chat over email with you, if you'd like. Look in my profile for contact info. Good luck!
Re: Thoughts on dropping out to do a startup
#9Hopefully this is related: can anyone give some advice or input on dropping out to work in silicon valley in general? I'm not close to done (first semester freshman), but I have an internship at a certain large SV company this summer. If you were in my position, and that company offered a job, would you take it?
Not to discourage you, but your education will likely benefit you far longer than most SV companies will be around. The benefits of education also brought, in my life, career choices that would not have been available without it. Choice is liberating. Who knows though, the world does seem to be changing.
I agree, but I think it's fair to say that education definitely exceeds the classroom in our fast-paced industry. I learned a lot during my 2.5 years in college, but very little of it, IMO, was related to classroom or homework-based criteria. It was almost all side projects.
Re: Thoughts on dropping out to do a startup
#10Hopefully this is related: can anyone give some advice or input on dropping out to work in silicon valley in general? I'm not close to done (first semester freshman), but I have an internship at a certain large SV company this summer. If you were in my position, and that company offered a job, would you take it?
I could go on about my opinion on this for a while, but to keep it short [edit, ok, maybe I failed at "short"]:
- If you like programming/CS, then studying CS in college can be fun (once you figure out if you're more into programming or theory you can take more systems or theory courses as appropriate).
- Having a degree will never harm your chances at a company, and can be seen as a legitimizing factor at many [usually larger] companies. If things ever go south, getting a job at a bigger company will be much easier.
- You learn a lot in a short time at university. A lot of this will be the type of things often asked in technical interviews, so it will generally make getting a job in the future easier (the CS interview process can be a little biased toward college type questions rather than industry type questions. Whether the system is broken is another topic). You will learn things in industry too, but if you stay in college you'll still learn them, just later. If you drop out, you might always wonder what topics you're missing out on.
- I don't feel like you're delaying your life by attending university, as that's generally what people expect you to do with the four years after high school, IMO.
As to how useful university has been, I found it very useful. But university, like many things, is what you make of it. It can be useless or very useful or somewhere in-between depending on what you do while there (what classes you take, what projects you work on in your spare time, possibly what clubs you find a fit in).
I've technically been in that situation, and my manager at the time encouraged me to finish my degree. But take this with a grain of salt; I would have finished my degree regardless of what anybody said at that point.
You have a better idea than anyone else of what's best for you, and you should make this decision, if it comes up, at the end of your internship rather than now. But I generally encourage people in CS to get their degree.
If you have any questions related to that, I'd be happy to answer them.