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More than 20% of self-made billionaires never completed college

forbes.com

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Re: More than 20% of self-made billionaires never completed college

#31

Post by blizkreeg »

I sometimes wonder if startups and silicon valley culture have been romanticized and hyped to such an extent that the immediate thing that comes to the mind of young hackers is to drop out of college to pursue/start a startup! Dreams are great, and so is working towards them but I don't think one should get carried away by this madness and start buying into and believing this fallacy. A startup is not simply about working on a cool project or some fancy idea that you believe is fancy, it's in essence a business. A solid, successful business takes many hands and years to build. Not each of us is a Gates. A few years finishing college is not going to set you back and will certainly not get in the way of the brilliant entrepreneur.

I'm all for working on your passionate ideas, creating something of value, building a valuable startup -- but come on, let's not erode the basics and ignore the foundation of the building in hopes of getting to the top floor fast.

It is foolish to take a few examples of outliers and think of it as a pattern in general.

Re: More than 20% of self-made billionaires never completed college

#32

Post by modoc »

gills wrote: post #27
modoc wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I worked at Urban Outfitters for $5.15/hour. I started off sleeping on a friend's couch until I could save up enough to get an apartment. I shared a rough but clean apartment in Oak Square in Brighton with two other guys. It was on a bus line, and I could also bike to work if it wasn't snowy. We paid $300/month each. At my income level I didn't pay any real taxes,…

Do you have a blog or something? It sounds like you have some good stories and lessons to share.

Thank you! I have two blogs, professional and personal (http://www.digitalsanctuary.com/tech-blog/ and http://www.digitalsanctuary.com/blog/), however I haven't really talked too much about my "lessons learned" or experiences yet. Maybe I should.

Re: More than 20% of self-made billionaires never completed college

#33

Post by dusklight »

tc wrote: post #18
breck wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Furthermore: Less than 50% of people went to college. Despite that, 80% of self-made billionaires went to college.

(eq 'correlation 'causation) => NIL Which could also be explained by observing that people born into more fortunate socioeconomic circumstances, with all that entails (different value systems, better health, better connections, better early education, etc.), have both a higher probability of going to college and a higher probability of becoming billionaires. The two outcomes are correlated, but one is not necessarily…

What you say is true but neither of the two posts above yours stated or implied any causation.

Re: More than 20% of self-made billionaires never completed college

#34

Post by neilk »

modoc wrote: post #24
neilk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. How do you save anything when working for minimum wage in the USA? In Boston, which is a pretty expensive city? I don't know the specifics of your situtation, but it seems to me that most "self-made" people had a lot of educational and social capital built up already. They might have taken a year or two voluntarily outside the system, but it was only because, previously their parents were themselves well educate…

Honestly it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I worked at Urban Outfitters for $5.15/hour. I started off sleeping on a friend's couch until I could save up enough to get an apartment. I shared a rough but clean apartment in Oak Square in Brighton with two other guys. It was on a bus line, and I could also bike to work if it wasn't snowy. We paid $300/month each. At my income level I didn't pay any real taxes,…

Of course there are ways to fix that. Better education for everyone, and access to upper-middle-class prerogatives like tutoring, clubs, athletics, and unsupervised time with advanced, programmable computers. That's basically the thesis of Gladwell's latest book, that we get mega-successes by providing rich opportunities for young people.

Also, universal and well-funded health insurance is a great way to promote entrepreurial risk-taking. I know so many Americans who are scared to make the leap because they have a member of their family who needs some sort of medical care.

Street sweeping may be an unattractive job for many, which is why it should have a relatively high wage and a good benefits plan.

Actually the fact that you are even suggesting that society needs misery and unhappiness to function... well, this sounds very provocative, but it tells me a lot about your background. It's the sort of thing that is a universal but unstated assumption if you are middle class to elite. The theory is that some, if not most, people are going to have sucky jobs, schools, lives, and opportunities, and this is a good thing, because it motivates people to strive for the "better" jobs. Never mind that this often condemns people to repeat the misfortunes of their parents, no matter how talented they are.

In the USA, people look back on the 50s as some kind of golden era of hard work and conservative values, but that was when there was the least income disparity, the most investment in infrastructure and education (even for adults), and some of the highest tax rates.

Anyway I speak as a guy who went to a fancy private school, but as the token "ethnic" guy whose parents don't go for skiing weekends in foreign countries. So, I've been fortunate enough to see both sides.

Re: More than 20% of self-made billionaires never completed college

#35

Post by eru »

modoc wrote: post #24
neilk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. How do you save anything when working for minimum wage in the USA? In Boston, which is a pretty expensive city? I don't know the specifics of your situtation, but it seems to me that most "self-made" people had a lot of educational and social capital built up already. They might have taken a year or two voluntarily outside the system, but it was only because, previously their parents were themselves well educate…

Honestly it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I worked at Urban Outfitters for $5.15/hour. I started off sleeping on a friend's couch until I could save up enough to get an apartment. I shared a rough but clean apartment in Oak Square in Brighton with two other guys. It was on a bus line, and I could also bike to work if it wasn't snowy. We paid $300/month each. At my income level I didn't pay any real taxes,…

Interesting. Why did you have to work minimum wage, though? Couldn't you have taken a higher paying job, say as a code monkey?

Re: More than 20% of self-made billionaires never completed college

#36

Post by electromagnetic »

modoc wrote: post #16
omnivore wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you fail, go back to college and get the degree. You say that no one cares. But job postings all over the web pretty much speak the opposite. Google doesn't just want degrees, they want degrees from top schools. So sure, if someone wants to work for a fly-by-night operation that MIGHT strike it rich, have a blast. But if they actually want health insurance someday, then it might be handy to get the degree abou…

Google cares. A lot. They reached out to me to offer me a position, and then retracted the offer once they learned the lack of degrees on my resume wasn't just a space saving mechanism. I've never had another company turn me down, even if they specifically "required" bachelors in CS, etc... in the job posting. And I'm not talking about "fly-by-night operations". Large companies, Fortune 500s, traditional non-tech foc…

It seems odd to me, and very dangerous business wise, that Google would reject someone because of their lack of a degree.

I'm a writer, and my experience in journalism is that editors actively screen out people with degrees in journalism because it teaches them bad practices (In all actuality it teaches them good [read: old] practices, but kills personal voice which is now everything, praise Hunter S. Thompson!). 1+ years experience writing always beats 4+ years in a degree program with 0+ years experience actually writing.

I've always thought programming was akin to writing, it's all about putting pieces together to make the whole work better. My brother went the programming way and I went the writing way (I tried programming, but I quickly realized I couldn't do it as a day-to-day 9-5 job). So I don't really get why Google would require a degree, because surely the most important thing is if someones code is elegant.

Re: More than 20% of self-made billionaires never completed college

#37

Post by tc »

dusklight wrote: post #33
tc wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(eq 'correlation 'causation) => NIL Which could also be explained by observing that people born into more fortunate socioeconomic circumstances, with all that entails (different value systems, better health, better connections, better early education, etc.), have both a higher probability of going to college and a higher probability of becoming billionaires. The two outcomes are correlated, but one is not necessarily…

What you say is true but neither of the two posts above yours stated or implied any causation.

My reading of the parent post was that the commenter was implying a causation by suggesting the difference between the percentage of college attendees in the general population vs the percentage of college attendees in the population of billionaires was conclusive of something significant ("despite that...").

If readers didn't understand the parent and grandparent posts to imply something more significant than basic math, I doubt the posts would have received so many upvotes.

Re: More than 20% of self-made billionaires never completed college

#38

Post by modoc »

eru wrote: post #35
modoc wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I worked at Urban Outfitters for $5.15/hour. I started off sleeping on a friend's couch until I could save up enough to get an apartment. I shared a rough but clean apartment in Oak Square in Brighton with two other guys. It was on a bus line, and I could also bike to work if it wasn't snowy. We paid $300/month each. At my income level I didn't pay any real taxes,…

Interesting. Why did you have to work minimum wage, though? Couldn't you have taken a higher paying job, say as a code monkey?

Because I didn't know how to code:)

I had been in the aerospace engineering program. I had used computers, and knew a little LOGO and BASIC. Eventually I was able to get a job in tech support due to my communications skills and willingness to learn. Once I had that job, I learned Java, and the rest is history:)

Re: More than 20% of self-made billionaires never completed college

#39

Post by copenja »

tc wrote: post #37
dusklight wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you say is true but neither of the two posts above yours stated or implied any causation.

My reading of the parent post was that the commenter was implying a causation by suggesting the difference between the percentage of college attendees in the general population vs the percentage of college attendees in the population of billionaires was conclusive of something significant ("despite that..."). If readers didn't understand the parent and grandparent posts to imply something more significant than basic…

I up voted him because I thought the statistics showed an interesting correlation.

Re: More than 20% of self-made billionaires never completed college

#40

Post by tc »

copenja wrote: post #39
tc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My reading of the parent post was that the commenter was implying a causation by suggesting the difference between the percentage of college attendees in the general population vs the percentage of college attendees in the population of billionaires was conclusive of something significant ("despite that..."). If readers didn't understand the parent and grandparent posts to imply something more significant than basic…

I up voted him because I thought the statistics showed an interesting correlation.

I'm curious though why you found it interesting. Without further data or analysis, the statements have no substantial meaning unless one conflates correlation with causation. You could just as easily say "people who go to college are more likely to have straight teeth."
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