Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed, pg might be familiar with that author.
He dedicated an entire essay to her: https://paulgraham.com/jessica.html
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How Universities Should Prepare Founders
181–190 of 333 posts
Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders
#182The context from working in a Valley startup funded by YC and run by one of their former executives is they are not seeing the talent they once did despite mining the same sources. There is little self reflection to consider the Silicon Valley offer has changed versus the talent itself.
I literally said, "we're all adults here," and I was corrected. The new batch of Cal grads are children, they said -- which is an indictment of all US graduates and not just Cal for some reason. Or maybe the startup funders are just like the ancient Greek writers who complained kids today don't want to work.
Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders
#183[flagged]
Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders
#184Something is missing in this text. I feel like key ingredient or two are completely left unarticulated.
Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
> (...) a byproduct of getting unusually good at understanding and building things A PhD is not about getting good at understanding something, let alone "unusually good". It's about being able to explore an uncharted area with little to no help, and write down your learnings so that those that come after you can build upon your work.
In an ideal world, sure. In reality, a PhD[1] is about publishing papers in the hope that you learn something along the way. [1] My experience in ML in 2026.
> In an ideal world, sure. In reality, a PhD[1] is about publishing papers in the hope that you learn something along the way.
You're being needlessly dismissive of what "publishing papers" mean. Writing down what you learn is what papers are for, and the only papers that count for a PhD are those which are accepted by reference journals, which impose a relatively high bar on what content they accept.
So you still need to explore uncharted areas, and your main output is still writing down what you found for others to build upon. Those are the deliverables. For the person doing the PhD, the primary benefit is developing research skills, such as independente and self-reliance.
Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders
#18699% 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 the world would be better off if the universities actively discouraged the idea of starting companies.
This is the case in Europe and the entire economy is a flaming pile of garbage.
Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
> (...) a byproduct of getting unusually good at understanding and building things A PhD is not about getting good at understanding something, let alone "unusually good". It's about being able to explore an uncharted area with little to no help, and write down your learnings so that those that come after you can build upon your work.
In an ideal world, sure. In reality, a PhD[1] is about publishing papers in the hope that you learn something along the way. [1] My experience in ML in 2026.
Which is ironic, because self-publishing then should automatically qualify you for a PhD. In fact, I believe more people should take this approach. As far as I'm aware, there's no law or regulation from declaring yourself a "PhD" backed by autoresearch.
Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders
#188The fuck is a founder
Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
In an ideal world, sure. In reality, a PhD[1] is about publishing papers in the hope that you learn something along the way. [1] My experience in ML in 2026.
> In an ideal world, sure. In reality, a PhD[1] is about publishing papers in the hope that you learn something along the way. You're being needlessly dismissive of what "publishing papers" mean. Writing down what you learn is what papers are for, and the only papers that count for a PhD are those which are accepted by reference journals, which impose a relatively high bar on what content they accept. So you still ne…
> which impose a relatively high bar on what content they accept.
Nope. In fact they accept utter garbage most of the time. I can't count the numbers of times I've caught pure errors (literal logic errors, code errors, mathematical errors) even in highly respected journals. Journals have a high bar of entry because they've gated their communities, only allowing insiders to publish (ie tenured professors, people associated/employed with university labs or their colleagues). If you don't have an industry connection the odds of you self publishing in these journals is zero. And if you _do_ find a connection, say a professor whose willing to help you out, they'll demand to place their name on your paper (without actually contributing anything). This is how you get papers with 50 authors, because every politicker wanted a piece of the pie.
This is also why you see frontier AI labs self-publishing on their websites rather than in journals.
Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders
#190I'd prefer it if they did not prepare people to destroy civilization to further pad some decrepit boomer's already ample pension. It's not like you can take it with you Paul.
We should have known better than to put the nerds in charge -- too focused on their spreadsheets and making the big number go up, while completely ignoring the calamities they have wrought upon both the people and their environs.