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How Universities Should Prepare Founders

paulgraham.com

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Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#201

Post by ModernMech »

rfgplk wrote: post #189
locknitpicker wrote: post #185

Earlier 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. 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 assoc…

> This is also why you see frontier AI labs self-publishing on their websites rather than in journals.

What they self-publish on their own websites should be regarded as marketing.

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#202

Post by [deleted] »

mettamage wrote: post #157
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…

> And if possible for way, way, way less money. Enough universities in Europe that do this. I am thinking of studying maths at the German distance university. I forgot the name. It would mean that I neef to speak good German. I might just do that too

[deleted]

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#203

Post by zigman1 »

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…

> This is shockingly vapid and wishy-washy even for PG

He has been like this for a while now. His last few essays are simply advertisement for a startup accelerator. Conveniently, he also owns one of them.

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#204

Post by tescreal »

locknitpicker wrote: post #197
rfgplk wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Which is ironic, because self-publishing then should automatically qualify you for a PhD. No. What qualifies you as a researcher is being able to output work that is accepted by your peers. Hence the peer review process is critical. You fail to meet this bar if you publish something in blogspot or even arxiv for that matter.

A key problem is upper-level academia is rife with the same sorts of human-scale power dynamics. Petty squabbles, ideological (and ideological-flavoured) views can and do hold entire fields from time to time. It is only a particular type of tenacity that breaks up the status quo from time to time. (consider the Marvin Minsky era of AI research. A big personality can stifle an entire field). Peers aren't usually the appropriate measuring stick of merit.

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#206

Post by [deleted] »

yieldcrv wrote: post #62
asa123 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the moment you start talking about opportunity cost, I think you've already ducked the intent of the majority of startup-strategizers-for-exponential-gains-only, for which the carrot on the stick is "unbounded" gain

can you repeat that in a different way? opportunity cost is prioritizing gains - or at least a window of opportunity for outsized gains - I don't see how "ducked the intent" fits in but yes I realize that any conversation with academics is going to be skewed from the market, I think its worth representing nonetheless since academics often interpret their privilege of choice as a nobler cause because they made that ch…

[deleted]

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#207

Post by tescreal »

I suspect there's a disconnect. I'm noting a lack of note about the real burden of finding capital to launch even a rather modest venture.

YC is an exclusive club (no offense folks, it is very much a club), and there's only so many venture bucks to go around. Before we produce more 'founders', it would be very beneficial to examine how they're to secure the very necessary funding. Not everybody has access to a personal reserve of capital for many many reasons.

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#208

Post by jmalicki »

watwut wrote: post #115
jmalicki wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is founding a company not a thing some humans experience?

He argues for lowering experience of everyone except founders, so that founders dont have more free time and dont have to learn what university teaches. It is favoring 1 group, not wide areas of the human experience.

It doesn't sound like he's arguing for something different than a lot of movements in education like Waldorf schools, the Nueva School, progressive liberal arts colleges, or how a lot of graduate schools work.

That school should be a support structure for self directed exploration rather than rigidity.

How is encouraging that unique to startup founders?

Re: How Universities Should Prepare Founders

#209

Post by hamza_ali_shah »

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.
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