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How Universities Should Prepare Founders

paulgraham.com

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Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#301

Post by chrisgd »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #294

I guess one thing universities have to decide is how important having founders is to them. PG talks about how Harvard has more founders than Yale and Princeton, but I don't really see that as a good or bad thing for any of those schools. There probably aren't infinite good ideas that can be successful at any one time. If you encourage more people to become founders then they aren't going to go into other places where…

Anecdotally, I think there are more rich children at Harvard than Yale (more legacies, more donations to get their child in, etc). Those people have more time to take a risk as a founder than non-wealthy.

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#302

Post by jeffreyrogers »

strangattractor wrote: post #299
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #294

I guess one thing universities have to decide is how important having founders is to them. PG talks about how Harvard has more founders than Yale and Princeton, but I don't really see that as a good or bad thing for any of those schools. There probably aren't infinite good ideas that can be successful at any one time. If you encourage more people to become founders then they aren't going to go into other places where…

There are so many VC's and so much money today the demand for "Founders" is high. One way to increase supply is to manufacture what you need - much like Korean K-Pop bands. Band members start in a Bootcamp. They learn to dance and get a vocal coach. As their fan base grows they start to disrupt and displace older bands that are aging out. The industry as a whole does well but individual band may or may not. Do they p…

I do think it is kind of funny when VCs talk about how they can tell who will be a successful founder. They are picking the people who get to call themselves founders so it is close to tautological that who they think will be successful matches who ends up succeeding. You don't get to see the counterfactual world where the non-funded people get given money and then you see what personality distribution the successes from that group have. The problem probably is worse now since there are fewer IPOs and more companies exit in private transactions where it's not clear how much economic value was actually created vs how much is just what the investors agree the business is worth.

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#303

Post by [deleted] »

diziet wrote: post #253
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.

[deleted]

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#304

Post by 01284a7e »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #294

I guess one thing universities have to decide is how important having founders is to them. PG talks about how Harvard has more founders than Yale and Princeton, but I don't really see that as a good or bad thing for any of those schools. There probably aren't infinite good ideas that can be successful at any one time. If you encourage more people to become founders then they aren't going to go into other places where…

"There probably aren't infinite good ideas that can be successful at any one time. If you encourage more people to become founders then they aren't going to go into other places where their skills might be better suited."

Yes, exactly. I do not think you need to try so hard to get more founders. Most small businesses fail. And even most venture-backed startups fail. You are already throwing a ton of eggs at the wall, which is mostly a waste of eggs. Even one of YC's largest successes (DoorDash) is nothing but a middle man of fast food enabled by mobile technology, which it did nothing to invent.

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#305

Post by eli_gottlieb »

antonvs wrote: post #290
nixonaddiction wrote: post #277

can vc money just fund basic research? im slowly getting confused on what founding a company even is. i am in grad school right now. a lot of funding and opportunities come from guys who are like "we need you to innovate we need you to act like a startup." its honestly kinda annoying. i just want to do basic research. i dont want to sell anything. i just want to build things. but the way this article frames it- is fo…

What you’re running into is the trend away from investing in basic research, in which almost everything (in the US) is now centered around a supposed path to profitability. As a result, in a sense, founding a company can be getting funding for a research project. A good example is nuclear fusion. There’s no nuclear fusion company, or research institute for that matter, that’s within even 50 years of having a commerci…

> Is what these fusion companies are doing unethical? A case can be made that it is, particularly when it comes to that last category of investor I mentioned. On the other hand, in an environment where basic research is discouraged, “life will find a way,” and you get these weird distortions of what a funded company is.

I think those VCs are acting quite unethically. If they want to fund basic research, they should just start a foundation that issues grants for basic research.

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#306

Post by watwut »

ModernMech wrote: post #276
maleldil wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no pretense. That's always been the whole point.

That's not my experience -- there's a whole pretense about being experts in a field, which is exactly what the poster above bought into. Having a PhD doesn't make or prove you're an expert about anything. It just proves you know how to do research in a thing, but that doesn't stop us from presenting PhDs in front of juries as if they're the only ones who know what they're talking about.

Self made experts with no PhD or formal degrees are testifying in front of juries. They dont even need any science to back them.

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#307

Post by [deleted] »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #302
strangattractor wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are so many VC's and so much money today the demand for "Founders" is high. One way to increase supply is to manufacture what you need - much like Korean K-Pop bands. Band members start in a Bootcamp. They learn to dance and get a vocal coach. As their fan base grows they start to disrupt and displace older bands that are aging out. The industry as a whole does well but individual band may or may not. Do they p…

I do think it is kind of funny when VCs talk about how they can tell who will be a successful founder. They are picking the people who get to call themselves founders so it is close to tautological that who they think will be successful matches who ends up succeeding. You don't get to see the counterfactual world where the non-funded people get given money and then you see what personality distribution the successes…

[deleted]

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#308

Post by testaccount28 »

ant6n wrote: post #93
testaccount28 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

could you explain your perspective more? i see it as: large companies are proof that much trade and consumption has occurred.

Large companies are more like proof that much concentration of wealth and power has occurred.

in the examples i can think of, this happens mostly because the company provides a product or service that is valuable to many, and shares the surplus with consumers. i am thinking about companies like microsoft, apple, netflix, google, stripe, walmart, costco, albertson's, starbucks, sysco.

what are the companies you are thinking about?

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#309

Post by testaccount28 »

protocolture wrote: post #104
testaccount28 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

could you explain your perspective more? i see it as: large companies are proof that much trade and consumption has occurred.

Why large company vs lots of money changing hand in the sector over lots of companies?

this is also good! we can have both.

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#310

Post by testaccount28 »

kakacik wrote: post #98
testaccount28 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

could you explain your perspective more? i see it as: large companies are proof that much trade and consumption has occurred.

Big companies like apple or meta screw their home countries (and most other countries, apart from tax havens) dramatically. Basically no taxes paid which is core to how state and everything is financed, have often enough power and huge egos to start meddling with running the state itself. They are utterly selfish entities run by highly functioning sociopaths with no concern about long term wellbeing of population. I…

i'm sorry you're feeling upset about this.
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