Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Universities Should Prepare Founders

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 333 posts

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#111

Post by watwut »

Fomite wrote: post #100
BobbyTables2 wrote: post #38

I hate the term “founder”. It grossly blurs the distinction between those who put in personal blood, sweat, tears, and money into starting a business versus those who make a few slides so they can use other people’s money to hire others to do all the work and come up with all the ideas.

Honestly, I think we would do well to dispose of both "founder" and "startup". We had words for this. "Small business" and "Small business owner".

They are not the same. Per VC culture, small business owner is a looser, tunning lifestyle business. They produce useful products in competitive markets and nurture relationship with customers.

Startup is meant to become monopoly and does not have to have good economics before abusing monopoly power. Competition is for loosers. It is about disrupting, not about building.

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#112

Post by ktallett »

FinnLobsien wrote: post #94
heikkilevanto wrote: post #79

99% of university students will never start a company. 99% of those who do will close down without making any measurable difference to the world. I think the world would be better off if the universities actively discouraged the idea of starting companies. Those few who really burn for the idea might do it anyway, and might be more likely to succeed.

I think that undermines a lot of benefits of entrepreneurship - the learning of many different skills, network, etc. and also just the adventure of starting a company. It’s like saying most people will never be professional athletes so we should discourage sports. Or most people live in their home country, so we should discourage young people from taking backpacking trips.

We seem to have become a culture where we unrealistically believe we have a solution. The big issue with many who label themselves as entrepreneurs is that often the problem doesn't exist. You end up networking with people who are less aware and also don't recognise that the problem doesn't exist and then motivate you even more. Then you have funders who rarely have expertise so they will believe you when you say it will change the world which basically all the time it won't.

Now I'm not of the view people shouldn't try to change the world but why should that be fixated on a business, why not a community effort, why not research, why not charity based, they all provide you with a range of skills. We have got a saturation of those starting businesses in every industry (especially mine which is quantum computing) and most have a poor idea or a repetitive idea or an idea that so unthought out it can't go anywhere.

(I will say less should go backpacking. Travelling on the whole now has become a distraction from life instead of a discovery. You are better taking that year or 6 months and spending it on something you love to do. That will show you who you are more than visiting some of the poorest nations on earth.)

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#113

Post by jb1991 »

heikkilevanto wrote: post #79

99% of university students will never start a company. 99% of those who do will close down without making any measurable difference to the world. I think the world would be better off if the universities actively discouraged the idea of starting companies. Those few who really burn for the idea might do it anyway, and might be more likely to succeed.

And those who really burn for it probably are not needing university anyway. The landscape of wildly successful people is filled with those who dropped out of high school or college.

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#114

Post by peppevignanello »

koe123 wrote: post #89
golly_ned wrote: post #66

> Merely eliminating [homework[ for a few weeks resulted in two trillion dollar companies. Imagine what the US GDP would be if reading period at Harvard were twice as long. This idea that "very large company" -> "productive economy" needs to die.

> This idea that "very large company" -> "productive economy" needs to die. I am economically naive, but I also have never understood this argument. I asked a Spanish friend what Spain needed, he said “more big companies”. Is it because a big company provides you something closer to a monopoly, and can do so internationally?

Not that your Spanish friend's opinion on what Spain needs is enough to exemplify what Spaniards (or Europeans) as a whole want and think.

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#115

Post by watwut »

jmalicki wrote: post #28
bmitc wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what he is arguing, though, is it?

Is founding a company not a thing some humans experience?

He argues for lowering experience of everyone except founders, so that founders dont have more free time and dont have to learn what university teaches.

It is favoring 1 group, not wide areas of the human experience.

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#117

Post by encode »

fyredge wrote: post #37

I disagree with the underlying assumption that it's the universities responsibility to cultivate founders. Universities were initially built to further the knowledge of specific fields, for the sake of its own advancement, producing philosophers, artists and scientists. In other words, universities are for people to learn for the sake of learning, not to earn a wage. New institutions should be built to cultivate foun…

The first universities were founded to educate priests, lawyers, and physicians. This can be seen in the way that universities standardized on 4 faculties: theology, law, medicine, and arts. What you are thinking of is the Humboldtian model of higher education which is a set of ideas that emerged in the 19th century and made research a central part of university's mission.

I still agree with you though in that it is not necessarily the universities responsibility to cultivate founders.

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#118

Post by jedberg »

There used to be a class at Berkeley that was cross listed between the CS department and the business school. When you were in the class, the CS kids and B-School kids were teamed up, and the B-School kids would write the business plan and product description, and the CS kids would make the prototype.

Then they would pitch in front of investors with both. Sometimes the ideas got funded and the kids would actually keep working on them.

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#119

Post by raphman »

ipnon wrote: post #109
01284a7e wrote: post #30

My university prepared me to be a founder by making me so unemployable that starting a business was my best option.

I don't think there's much value in college anymore outside of as a class signifier, and most schools are signifying that you are not in the right social class.

Why do you think that? Does your view include colleges worldwide or is your comment about a specific country?
Post reply on HN