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Student Entrepreneurs: If Peter Thiel Calls, Hang Up

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Re: Student Entrepreneurs: If Peter Thiel Calls, Hang Up

#41

Post by thejulielogan »

tobyjsullivan wrote: post #27

I appreciate the article and the point of view but I have to disagree completely with his recommendation that you spend your years working for someone else before you launch your own business. He talks about working for a company after finishing college to learn about how they operate and do business. You know what I learned in the five years after college I worked for a company as a dev? A whole lot about software d…

Agreed. Being elsewhere for a few years, finishing school before that, doesn't guarantee you'll learn the managerial skills required to be a CEO.

Re: Student Entrepreneurs: If Peter Thiel Calls, Hang Up

#43

Post by Fomite »

kippn_it_real wrote: post #20

There seems to be a consensus here that all big corporations are inept and the all that you can learn from them is what not to do. Only ~5% of startups are successful while 100% of big corporations were at one point. If you can't learn anything from Big Corp you aren't trying.

Agreed - hell, if they are inept, you can learn how you went from "Successful Industry Leader" to "Cumbersome, Lumbering Dinosaur" - and avoid that same path with your startup.

Re: Student Entrepreneurs: If Peter Thiel Calls, Hang Up

#44

Post by RougeFemme »

enraged_camel wrote: post #35
jmduke wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...Says the man who went to school when the opportunity cost wasn't a decade in debt (at the very least). I got a great college education and graduated with a level of debt that I paid off in less than a year, through a mix of need-based grants, merit-based scholarships, working 15 hrs/wk, and a lower overall tuition because it was a public school. (There's also the growing trend of 2&2 programs, which in retrospect…

Perhaps it has not occurred to you that you were an outlier who was able to qualify for grants and scholarships and also had a (presumably decent-paying) part-time job. Not to mention living in a state with a decent school for your degree of choice. But, I mean, let's get real. Take a good public school like University of Washington. 4-year tuition comes to $160,000 - if you life with parents [1]. Are you telling me…

I agree that college is/can be expensive, but I think that your 4-year figure for tuition actually includes everything. Granted, tuition and fees are pretty fixed, but the other expenses - room/board, books/supplies, transportation, personal expenses - are usually quite variable.

And, if you go a community college, which is considerably cheaper, you can then move on to a 4-year college. In some states, doing well at the community college, almost guarantees you admission to one of the good public 4-year colleges.

Re: Student Entrepreneurs: If Peter Thiel Calls, Hang Up

#45

Post by michaelt »

tobyjsullivan wrote: post #27

I appreciate the article and the point of view but I have to disagree completely with his recommendation that you spend your years working for someone else before you launch your own business. He talks about working for a company after finishing college to learn about how they operate and do business. You know what I learned in the five years after college I worked for a company as a dev? A whole lot about software d…

No doubt it depends on the company - did you ask to be trained in management?

I know at my employer some people don't aspire to cease being developers and start being managers (which is fine) so they don't get trained to be managers (which is also fine).

Re: Student Entrepreneurs: If Peter Thiel Calls, Hang Up

#46

Post by jmduke »

enraged_camel wrote: post #35
jmduke wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...Says the man who went to school when the opportunity cost wasn't a decade in debt (at the very least). I got a great college education and graduated with a level of debt that I paid off in less than a year, through a mix of need-based grants, merit-based scholarships, working 15 hrs/wk, and a lower overall tuition because it was a public school. (There's also the growing trend of 2&2 programs, which in retrospect…

Perhaps it has not occurred to you that you were an outlier who was able to qualify for grants and scholarships and also had a (presumably decent-paying) part-time job. Not to mention living in a state with a decent school for your degree of choice. But, I mean, let's get real. Take a good public school like University of Washington. 4-year tuition comes to $160,000 - if you life with parents [1]. Are you telling me…

I'm not trying to assert that my experience was the standard. But the post to which I replied was asserting that the minimum cost was ten years of debt, which is also not standard.

From a financial standpoint, there's little difference (at least to my knowledge) between attending an out-of-state public school and an out-of-state private school. A more apt comparison would be looking at UW's estimate for Washington Residents who live away from home, which is $12K tuition and $27K estimated total expense ($10K of which comes from room and board. As someone whose alma mater quoted something like $13K for room and board, I can speak anecdotally that those estimates come from on-campus dorms & meal plans, which are awful; you're basically paying $15/meal.)

Re: Student Entrepreneurs: If Peter Thiel Calls, Hang Up

#47

Post by npalli »

“I'm a crotchety old guy. I worry about all these new companies. I'm glad that they're easier to start, but the problem is, they're just as hard to finish as they have always been”

This is a great observation from Mike Olson. I think a lot of people who are dropping off to start on the entrepreneurial path vastly underestimate the difficulty of building a company to a point where they can sell or IPO or get just get a good return. Lot of the startup-lore is built around expectation of success that has vastly diminished in the last few years and we will soon find a lot of people who are thirty-five, have worked through three-four failed startups and nothing to offer to the broader world.

If you look at number of seed accelerators in the US[1], we have about 175. Every year about 3000 companies are formed and a vast number of them fail. Take the top accelerator in the country (perhaps the world). YCombinator. It has funded about 550 companies, pg is rightfully proud of the value created. However, if you took out the top 10 of them I suspect 99% of the value goes away. I remember just AirBnB and Dropbox making 75% of the value. Think about it, even if you came out of YC, you have a 2% chance of success. That means if you even if you join a startup accelerator in Middletown, USA your chance is probably 0.5% and if you don’t even get to join a accelerator it is probably even less (0.1%?)

I suspect a lot of people still think there is a 5% chance you will succeed in a startup. That was the case 15 years back. With a 5% success rate, you could possible iterate to a better than even odd of success if you went through 3-4 startups. If you were told you have a 0.1% chance of success, it is more of a random crapshoot. What is it that you will learn and show after 3-4 attempts?

The other option of going to college, working for a big company and the associated payoff hasn’t changed much. If the startup option is now 50 times riskier, you need to think hard about your choices. Maybe you are an optimist, that’s OK but don’t default to choices.

[1] http://www.seed-db.com/accelerators

Re: Student Entrepreneurs: If Peter Thiel Calls, Hang Up

#48

Post by zalzane »

enraged_camel wrote: post #36
jeffasinger wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of school options that involve much lower debt than that. You don't need to go to a school that costs $50k a year, there are plenty of alternatives.

There are plenty of alternatives, but do they provide the same quality of education for your degree of choice?

Why wouldn't they? It's not like MIT/whatever uses special books that no other uni can use. It's not like prestigious universities follow some special program that makes it so their students gain a much better insight into the subject than people who go to other universities.

The perks of attending a prestigious university typically has nothing to do with your education. It has to do with rubbing shoulders with blue bloods, creating a powerful social network, and being able to woo people with the pedigree associated with the words "MIT graduate" on your resume.

Re: Student Entrepreneurs: If Peter Thiel Calls, Hang Up

#49

Post by enraged_camel »

saryant wrote: post #38
enraged_camel wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it has not occurred to you that you were an outlier who was able to qualify for grants and scholarships and also had a (presumably decent-paying) part-time job. Not to mention living in a state with a decent school for your degree of choice. But, I mean, let's get real. Take a good public school like University of Washington. 4-year tuition comes to $160,000 - if you life with parents [1]. Are you telling me…

That's for non-residents. At least look at the in-state number which is less than half the one you quoted.

Most of the resident students live on or around campus, as opposed to with their parents. For them, total cost comes down to around $110,000. That's still a six-digit number.

Re: Student Entrepreneurs: If Peter Thiel Calls, Hang Up

#50

Post by thejulielogan »

zhemao wrote: post #5
auggierose wrote: post #3

Also, yes, hiring is difficult. Do you really think you are learning how to do it properly by working at Big Corp first?

Well, you will at least learn how not to do it.

Not true. Rarely do you (a cog) see the hiring process (a different cog) used by your massive company (the machine). Especially when you're just out of college.
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