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Olin College Produces Founders at Five Times the Rate of Stanford

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Re: Olin College Produces Founders at Five Times the Rate of Stanford

#51

Post by sbierwagen »

arcticfox wrote: post #47
sbierwagen wrote: post #31

(squeezing eyes shut and focusing my psychic powers) This college I've never heard of will turn out to have tiny enrollment, and the entire effect size will be selection bias + random noise. >Olin College, a small engineering school in Needham, MA, which graduates around 75 students per year, turns out an alumni population where 2.77% of alumni found a successfully venture-backed startup, more than five times the rat…

Actually, it's not selection bias at all! This result wasn't just drawn out of a 1000-count small college hat, so naive Bayesian priors shouldn't be used here. As an alum, I specifically went to Olin because I thought it would best help me become a successful entrepreneur. Many people do. So my priors are that Olin is likely to do this at a higher rate (since Stanford / MIT etc. have entire swathes of the school not…

>Actually, it's not selection bias at all! [...] As an alum, I specifically went to Olin because I thought it would best help me become a successful entrepreneur. Many people do.

From the link:

>In other words, what we might have perceived as a difference in education quality was really the product of systematic differences in how the considered populations were put together. The groups we considered had a hidden non-random distribution. This is selection bias.

As you just stated, entrepreneur-y students self-select into Olin. The fact the school produces entrepreneurs doesn't have anything to do with the teachers, the curriculum, or the chemicals Olin puts in the drinking water. It's the non-random distribution of students.

Re: Olin College Produces Founders at Five Times the Rate of Stanford

#52

Post by pbiggar »

Bartweiss wrote: post #22
axplusb wrote: post #8

Before jumping to conclusions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_small_numbers Edit: Actual Wikipedia entry = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insensitivity_to_sample_size

Not just that - it's also sample bias twice over. First, because Olin is ludicrously selective, and second, because Olin only offers founding-friendly majors. I don't think a pre-med intending to become a surgeon should really be faulted for "failing" to start a company, but that's effectively what the article does.

Well, pick one. Either there's a cause, or there's no cause. Either they're full of shit, or they deliberately did this. You can't credibly claim both to dismiss them.

Re: Olin College Produces Founders at Five Times the Rate of Stanford

#53

Post by dna_polymerase »

A university should not focus on producing founders but to teach scientific working and after all enabling research. If people found their own companies - nice. If not, doesn't matter.

Also nice for Olin College to produce so many companies but Stanford's history did not only produce tons of companies but also this place known these days as Silicon Valley (there is no way SV would be the place it is toady without Stanford).

Re: Olin College Produces Founders at Five Times the Rate of Stanford

#54

Post by sbierwagen »

cjbprime wrote: post #39
sbierwagen wrote: post #31

(squeezing eyes shut and focusing my psychic powers) This college I've never heard of will turn out to have tiny enrollment, and the entire effect size will be selection bias + random noise. >Olin College, a small engineering school in Needham, MA, which graduates around 75 students per year, turns out an alumni population where 2.77% of alumni found a successfully venture-backed startup, more than five times the rat…

Sorry, I guess I'm being slow -- I get that the sample size is too small to confirm the effect, but I'm not seeing where the selection bias is. Is it that the type of people who would be attracted to founding a startup are more likely to apply/be accepted to Olin than Stanford? That seems to confirm the original article's thesis rather than invalidate it, in my eyes, so I don't expect that's what you're thinking..

If you assume that, out of all the students who applied to Olin, only 70 were entrepreneur-y, then a class size of 75 would capture all of them, and Olin would have an impressive number of successful entrepreneurs among its alumni.

But it doesn't scale. If you made Olin accept ten times as many students, then its numbers would regress to the mean.

Re: Olin College Produces Founders at Five Times the Rate of Stanford

#55

Post by epalmer »

aswanson wrote: post #5

Putting this one on the suggest/visit list for my son, definitely.

If you visit make make sure to walk through the academic building. Yes only one such building. That is where you will find the students, usually on the floor, with their project, in the halls, everywhere. Giant post-it notes all over the walls.

My wife and youngest visited in 2015. She is now a first year their. She did a gap year.

Re: Olin College Produces Founders at Five Times the Rate of Stanford

#56

Post by Goronmon »

pbiggar wrote: post #52
Bartweiss wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just that - it's also sample bias twice over. First, because Olin is ludicrously selective, and second, because Olin only offers founding-friendly majors. I don't think a pre-med intending to become a surgeon should really be faulted for "failing" to start a company, but that's effectively what the article does.

Well, pick one. Either there's a cause, or there's no cause. Either they're full of shit, or they deliberately did this. You can't credibly claim both to dismiss them.

Well, pick one.

Pick one of what?

Re: Olin College Produces Founders at Five Times the Rate of Stanford

#57

Post by Tuxer »

arcticfox wrote: post #47
sbierwagen wrote: post #31

(squeezing eyes shut and focusing my psychic powers) This college I've never heard of will turn out to have tiny enrollment, and the entire effect size will be selection bias + random noise. >Olin College, a small engineering school in Needham, MA, which graduates around 75 students per year, turns out an alumni population where 2.77% of alumni found a successfully venture-backed startup, more than five times the rat…

Actually, it's not selection bias at all! This result wasn't just drawn out of a 1000-count small college hat, so naive Bayesian priors shouldn't be used here. As an alum, I specifically went to Olin because I thought it would best help me become a successful entrepreneur. Many people do. So my priors are that Olin is likely to do this at a higher rate (since Stanford / MIT etc. have entire swathes of the school not…

"it's not selection bias at all"

"I specifically went to Olin because I thought it would best help me become a successful entrepreneur"

choose one

Re: Olin College Produces Founders at Five Times the Rate of Stanford

#58

Post by leblancfg »

sbierwagen wrote: post #31

(squeezing eyes shut and focusing my psychic powers) This college I've never heard of will turn out to have tiny enrollment, and the entire effect size will be selection bias + random noise. >Olin College, a small engineering school in Needham, MA, which graduates around 75 students per year, turns out an alumni population where 2.77% of alumni found a successfully venture-backed startup, more than five times the rat…

I've regularly heard good things of Olin College in the past years, especially when it comes to teaching CS early to all engineering students. Was not surprised to read this headline, but have never met any grads personally.

Re: Olin College Produces Founders at Five Times the Rate of Stanford

#59

Post by pataoAoC »

sbierwagen wrote: post #51
arcticfox wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it's not selection bias at all! This result wasn't just drawn out of a 1000-count small college hat, so naive Bayesian priors shouldn't be used here. As an alum, I specifically went to Olin because I thought it would best help me become a successful entrepreneur. Many people do. So my priors are that Olin is likely to do this at a higher rate (since Stanford / MIT etc. have entire swathes of the school not…

>Actually, it's not selection bias at all! [...] As an alum, I specifically went to Olin because I thought it would best help me become a successful entrepreneur. Many people do. From the link: >In other words, what we might have perceived as a difference in education quality was really the product of systematic differences in how the considered populations were put together. The groups we considered had a hidden non…

It depends what the conclusion in question is, whether selection bias is a factor.

Does Olin produce / graduate founders at ~5 times the rate of Stanford? Yes - no bias.

Is the effect size due to self-selection? Likely at least partially.

Re: Olin College Produces Founders at Five Times the Rate of Stanford

#60

Post by Bartweiss »

pbiggar wrote: post #52
Bartweiss wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just that - it's also sample bias twice over. First, because Olin is ludicrously selective, and second, because Olin only offers founding-friendly majors. I don't think a pre-med intending to become a surgeon should really be faulted for "failing" to start a company, but that's effectively what the article does.

Well, pick one. Either there's a cause, or there's no cause. Either they're full of shit, or they deliberately did this. You can't credibly claim both to dismiss them.

Pick one of what?

I'm not talking about whether Olin is a good school, it obviously is. I'm saying that "rate of company founding" is a nonsensical axis of comparison. It's like noting that Olin produces 100% fewer Stanford grads than Stanford does.

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