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How Universities Should Prepare Founders

paulgraham.com

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Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#251

Post by PaulHoule »

oytis wrote: post #164
bix6 wrote: post #61

I don’t necessarily disagree with this but is it the universities job to prepare founders at the expense of everyone else? Under his proposal the motivated founders succeed and everyone else is a loser. This is a very VC focused lens that ignores all the other possible outcomes a human could pursue that are valuable. Established corps need workers, unis need new teachers, hospitals need doctors, etc. So we should let…

My first reflex would be to ctiticise PG, but after reading the article, I don't think I agree here. First he doesn't say universities should prepare founders - his advice is to those universities that do want to do that. Second, his advice is basically to skip BS business education and make students good professionals, well-rounded intellectuals, not afraid of starting a business. Anyone would benefit from such educ…

There are founders and there also are the rest of the startup workers.

I felt my most valuable formative experience for being a startup worker was the summer I was back from college and the supermarket I worked at in high school felt they owed me a job even though they weren't really hiring.

I was assigned 50% as a bagger in the front end and 50% a pinch hitter attached to the store manager who did whatever random things we needed whether it was deep clean the floor, paint a metal strip around the building, learn to work the meat slicer to sub for somebody in the deli, sub for people in the bakery, etc.

That made me into somebody who did whatever need to be done, but people who haven't had that kind of experience get really hung up on job titles and think "I'm a data scientist, I don't need to do that."

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#252

Post by jschveibinz »

I volunteer mentor at the Rady School Sullivan Center at UCSD. It's a very good program that offers no-credit "learn by doing" programs that pairs entrepreneurial-minded students with technology startups. Everybody wins.

The most important lessons for students include: realistic expectations, a new vocabulary, and a real-world understanding of the complexities of building a startup.

I've worked at other universities where startups are treated more like sports to get interest and social media attention: competitions, events, socializing, etc. Those are nice things, but they are superficial in my opinion.

My advice for students would be to find opportunities to get in the trenches and experience the challenges and hardships faced by founders--those are the most important lessons.

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#253

Post by diziet »

dofm wrote: post #152

This is shockingly vapid and wishy-washy even for PG. Leaving this weird, rather Valley-specific, even YC-specific, navel-gazing definition of "founder" aside, universities should do what they promise to do for their students. And if possible for way, way, way less money. He seems quite out of touch with the level of economic hardship involved in being a student; a huge number of students already work a couple of job…

I think just as those who have never had kids, those who have never done a (successful) startup do not understand the value of PG's words - the same way those who choose not to have kids do not understand the joy of (having) them. There is great wisdom in PG's essay, and it is not vapid or wishy-washy.

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#254

Post by watwut »

hamza_ali_shah wrote: post #209
dofm wrote: post #152

This is shockingly vapid and wishy-washy even for PG. Leaving this weird, rather Valley-specific, even YC-specific, navel-gazing definition of "founder" aside, universities should do what they promise to do for their students. And if possible for way, way, way less money. He seems quite out of touch with the level of economic hardship involved in being a student; a huge number of students already work a couple of job…

His point is to rethink the purpose education... Yes, there's a privellaged sense in assuming every student has equal access to time,resources, and family dynamics and economics. I feel the idea that universities and education system in general needs to move away from purely academic style of education to practical startup-forcused is needed for the new era.

> move away from purely academic style of education to practical startup-forcused is needed for the new era.

The new era does not seem to be startup or small business focused, that period already was - at around the time google and company started. Back then, startup actually meant small business starting up.

What is puzzling is why do you need to highjack academia, make it stop doing academic and turn it into incubator or business hub. VCs have enough money to create own business hubs. And they can even admit people who are not from most flashy universities there. There is no reason to take over academia and stop it from its original purpose.

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#255

Post by vatsachak »

As a former lecturer, there's way more concerning blights than preparing founders. For example, the abuse of the disability system, excessive student loans, the lack of standardized testing at higher level courses, the use of LLMs as a crutch, the politics in hiring...

And the list goes on

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#256

Post by n4r9 »

> there are only two things universities need to change to be perfect at preparing founders: they need to make students feel that starting a startup is something they can do, and they need to encourage them to work on their own projects

Don't many universities already do something like this? Pretty sure we had projects where you could either select a project template or propose your own.

> Until you've seen some founders in real life, you tend to think that starting startups is something done by other people. Seeing them pops that bubble.

I've met a few founders and find that they have a totally different personality to me. Extremely self-assured, decisive, much more focused on the high-level than the low. Often from wealthy or privileged backgrounds where taking risks is... well, less risky.

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#258

Post by Swizec »

neomantra wrote: post #222

I am more interested in the question of how Y-Combinator has changed Stanford over the last two decades rather than the question of how Stanford should change to accommodate Y-Combinator. Notice there is no mention of ethics, philosophy, or human connection, except maybe Zuck being a psych major. Do we really want the future of education to be an incubator pipeline? That said I wholehearted agree with the second half…

> For the first part, I suspect that money, and the safety net it provides, is a bigger impediment to entrepreneurship than its collegiate advocacy.

An old HN comment captured this perfectly, it’s my favorite analogy of entrepreneurship [1]

Entrepreneurship is like one of those carnival games where you throw darts or something.

Middle class kids can afford one throw. Most miss. A few hit the target and get a small prize. A very few hit the center bullseye and get a bigger prize. Rags to riches! The American Dream lives on.

Rich kids can afford many throws. If they want to, they can try over and over and over again until they hit something and feel good about themselves. Some keep going until they hit the center bullseye, then they give speeches or write blog posts about "meritocracy" and the salutary effects of hard work.

Poor kids aren't visiting the carnival. They're the ones working it.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15659076

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#259

Post by TuringNYC »

capnrefsmmat wrote: post #199
dofm wrote: post #152

This is shockingly vapid and wishy-washy even for PG. Leaving this weird, rather Valley-specific, even YC-specific, navel-gazing definition of "founder" aside, universities should do what they promise to do for their students. And if possible for way, way, way less money. He seems quite out of touch with the level of economic hardship involved in being a student; a huge number of students already work a couple of job…

> He seems quite out of touch with the level of economic hardship involved in being a student; a huge number of students already work a couple of jobs and are navigating small businesses, especially here in the UK where he apparently now lives. They aren't going to have enough "free time" to play with a "project" even if a bit more is made available by loosening the curriculum. Empirically, student free time grew for…

The articles are from 2006 and 2011.

Here is inflation since

https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2022/04/inflat...

Please lets have some decency towards the struggles of students

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