The Pmarca Guide to Career Planning, Part 2: Skills and Education
1–10 of 23 posts
Re: The Pmarca Guide to Career Planning, Part 2: Skills and Education
#2I liked the first one, but I must say I'm a little disappointed that there is an assumption that college is a needed experience. Granted, it is in most cases, but - especially for entrepreneurs - it's not always the only way to success.
Re: The Pmarca Guide to Career Planning, Part 2: Skills and Education
#3I liked the first one, but I must say I'm a little disappointed that there is an assumption that college is a needed experience. Granted, it is in most cases, but - especially for entrepreneurs - it's not always the only way to success.
I think the assumption is that, without a degree, you will not be able to find equivalent experience from which you can draw out the same "how to think like an engineer" perspective.
Who would suggest skipping college? Yet, if you have a clearly great opportunity lined up, it's not a bad thing to leave. And if you get yourself kicked out midterm like I did, you have great motivation to make something happen in the non-college world. When I was at college, there were many stories of guys who flunked out and ended up doing interesting things. Then I became one!
Re: The Pmarca Guide to Career Planning, Part 2: Skills and Education
#4I liked the first one, but I must say I'm a little disappointed that there is an assumption that college is a needed experience. Granted, it is in most cases, but - especially for entrepreneurs - it's not always the only way to success.
I think the assumption is that, without a degree, you will not be able to find equivalent experience from which you can draw out the same "how to think like an engineer" perspective. Who would suggest skipping college? Yet, if you have a clearly great opportunity lined up, it's not a bad thing to leave. And if you get yourself kicked out midterm like I did, you have great motivation to make something happen in the no…
I think I have the "how to think like an engineer" mentality already, two and and a half years in. Does this mean I can quit now?
Re: The Pmarca Guide to Career Planning, Part 2: Skills and Education
#5This reads like it was written by an HR representative at Google. I'm all for hard sciences and engineering but the most financially successful people I've met, been friends with, or worked for all have much different backgrounds than what he is describing.
He makes some other weird points. Economics and mathematics on their own are almost as useless as renaissance literature. (I know, I studied mathematics and economics)
"that's a great way to end up wanting to kill yourself when you hit 30 and you realize you still haven't done anything with your life."
I think he's a bit off base, here. This statement describes most of the 30 something engineers I've met who didn't work at the right startup and therefore didn't become rich. In contrast most liberal artsy people (do artists count, or does "liberal arts" mean people who majored in something like sociology?) seem reasonably content.
Re: The Pmarca Guide to Career Planning, Part 2: Skills and Education
#6For what it's worth, very few of the very succesfull people I know have an engineering degree. Many have an MBA or JD, though.
Re: The Pmarca Guide to Career Planning, Part 2: Skills and Education
#7> However, most of the people who have a huge impact on the world, outside of pure research and education, do not have PhD's. Draw from that whatever conclusion you think makes sense.
My conclusion is that Marc is being a bit sloppy here. Like 75% of the Y Combinator partners, I have a Ph.D.---and I think graduate (and, indeed, undergraduate) degrees are overrated. But given the small percentage of Ph.D.s even among technical people, it would be very surprising if most people having a high impact had them. More relevant is to ask whether Ph.D.s have relatively more impact than those without doctoral degrees. I don't know the answer, but I think it's a more interesting question.
Re: The Pmarca Guide to Career Planning, Part 2: Skills and Education
#8> However, most of the people who have a huge impact on the world, outside of pure research and education, do not have PhD's. Draw from that whatever conclusion you think makes sense. My conclusion is that Marc is being a bit sloppy here. Like 75% of the Y Combinator partners, I have a Ph.D.---and I think graduate (and, indeed, undergraduate) degrees are overrated. But given the small percentage of Ph.D.s even among…
I think this is software-centric thinking.
If you look at hardware, you really need a Ph.D. to make a serious contribution to theory, and a lot of important founders (Intel springs to mind) had doctorates.
Re: The Pmarca Guide to Career Planning, Part 2: Skills and Education
#9This reads like it was written by an HR representative at Google. I'm all for hard sciences and engineering but the most financially successful people I've met, been friends with, or worked for all have much different backgrounds than what he is describing. He makes some other weird points. Economics and mathematics on their own are almost as useless as renaissance literature. (I know, I studied mathematics and econo…
It might help if you read his "part 0". Won't necessarily make you agree with his points, but he provides a bit of context:
Re: The Pmarca Guide to Career Planning, Part 2: Skills and Education
#10> Graduating with a technical degree is like heading out into the real world armed with an assault rifle instead of a dull knife. Don't miss that opportunity because of some fuzzy romanticized view of liberal arts broadening your horizons -- that's a great way to end up wanting to kill yourself when you hit 30 and you realize you still haven't done anything with your life.
Jesus, what a prick.