I haven't quit my job, but I'm going to leave it as soon as I reasonably can. It's really hard to say whether Paul Graham had anything to do with it. I'd read inspirational stuff from Kathy Sierra (Creating Passionate Users) and Pamela Slim (Escape from Cubicle Nation) first, which I think is where I started getting the idea to start my own company.
Paul Graham convinced me to drop out of school / quit my job [Vote up if true]
41–50 of 62 posts
Re: Paul Graham convinced me to drop out of school / quit my job [Vote up if true]
#42Yep - if I end up homeless I am coming to his house to beg :P
Re: Paul Graham convinced me to drop out of school / quit my job [Vote up if true]
#43This just freaks me out. I can't wait for this one to slide down the frontpage...
When you open Pandora's box, you get everything, both the bad (greed, vanity, slander, envy, pining, etc.) and the good (hope and progress).
Re: Paul Graham convinced me to drop out of school / quit my job [Vote up if true]
#44This just freaks me out. I can't wait for this one to slide down the frontpage...
Wait until you get groupies camping outside your house, just to get glimpse of you. You could be the next David Koresh or Jim Jones.
Re: Paul Graham convinced me to drop out of school / quit my job [Vote up if true]
#45This just freaks me out. I can't wait for this one to slide down the frontpage...
BTW, I'm seeing a weird bug in Safari. Every time I reply or just click an up-arrow, I get an error saying "does nto exist". Then I go back, and see that my comment was posted and my up-vote was counted. What gives?
Re: Paul Graham convinced me to drop out of school / quit my job [Vote up if true]
#46I quit my job and went to grad school because of Paul Graham. At the first Startup School (Cambridge), Paul's speech casually mentioned that grad school was a good way to meet co-founders. I wasn't specifically looking for co-founders (although like he predicted, I found some here) but decided that it was the right time to get a master's. In the next nine months, I quit my job, moved to Silicon Valley and started ful…
May I ask what grad school you attend? Why has it been one of the best decisions? People? Projects?
Well, I'm at Stanford, which is a good part of why it's been so great. Before Startup School, I hadn't had the balls to apply to particulary competitive schools. (I was previously thinking of getting a master's in IT management from a local school. It's a good program if I wanted to be a contractor, but not when I really wanted to be in the software industry.)
Stanford is in the heart of Silicon Valley, which is a big part of why this has been so great. There are an unusual number of opportunities related to tech business because of that. The other schools in this area, like Santa Clara U. and San Jose State, also have great access to the tech industry. And even if I wasn't in school, it would have been wise just to move to this area.
At Stanford, I've also met a lot of smart and motivated people, both professors and students. I'm learning a TON in my classes, honestly they're far more interesting and useful than I would have guessed. I stumbled upon co-founders for a startup, and I've gotten the opportunity to TA for a great professor. It's all been a ton of work, and I'm honestly kinda burnt out, but nonetheless I'm really glad I'm here.
Re: Paul Graham convinced me to drop out of school / quit my job [Vote up if true]
#47This just freaks me out. I can't wait for this one to slide down the frontpage...
Paul, on Saturday, you discussed YC's 100% satisfaction rating from the founders you've sponsored. I can't imagine that's true for all (non-YC) startups, but I bet it's still extremely high. I hope you do become more comfortable with this, because there are a bunch of us that are living much more inspired lives, and trace part of that inspiration back to you. I'd hate to see you shy away from this because you're nervous about the outcome.
(Fortunately, I don't see any signs that you're actually too concerned. "Why to Not Not Start a Startup" couldn't have come from someone who's wavering!)
Re: Paul Graham convinced me to drop out of school / quit my job [Vote up if true]
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
You may already know this, but unlike reddit, comment scores here affect karma.
One decent approach is to create two comments with instructions to vote one up and the other down, so you stay karma-neutral. So you need a total of 1+2n comments for a poll with n options. Like so: Do you think this is a good idea? (Vote this like you would an ordinary comment)
Sigh. The sum of the scores on my four comments is now 6 and yesterday it was 3 (should always be 4). Apparently this is a bad idea.
Re: Paul Graham convinced me to drop out of school / quit my job [Vote up if true]
#49I was in love with Electrical Engineering. But reading Paul's essays upset me because it was so true: After four years of banging my head on the books, I would be expected to get a job in a cubicle for the rest of my life. While designing circuits and solving mathematical equations is quite orgasmic, it has its down sides too. Inspired by Joel Spolsky and Paul Graham, I decided to leave University to develop a microI…
Not everything, though, is as blissful as it sounds. There are times when I wish I had taken the beating and went along with the standard template. I haven't told my parents that I have left university to pursue the startup dream...it wouldn't be wise to tell them unless they felt the opportunity cost of pursuing a startup is greater than getting a job. So every other day, they believe I leave off to study at my Univ…
Hate to burst your bubble but it's been done already...
...sodahead.com
Re: Paul Graham convinced me to drop out of school / quit my job [Vote up if true]
#50If Paul Graham's conviction comes with seed funding, I'll do that.