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Are you building a company, or your credentials?

geofflewis.org

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Re: Are you building a company, or your credentials?

#51

Post by ajju »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #41
bostonvaulter2 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least it will be obvious when that happens since the startups will start failing.

Are you being funny on purpose? ;) If so, kudos on the deadpan delivery. Quite a few YC startups have already failed to build solid, growing businesses. Most startups do, after all. The good news is that former YC founders generally find other work, sometimes immediately via a talent acquisition of their former YC company. In other words, they cash in on their credentials, some of which obviously come from having bee…

> The question is whether or not he will be accepted.

Touche

Re: Are you building a company, or your credentials?

#52

Post by harri127 »

I agree that the purpose of what you are trying to achieve is important. Some people just care only about the status of getting into an accelerator program but I think the real value lies in building something that has an impact and changes the way we live our life. The problem with people just wanting "the credentials" is like the people who want to just get into a school for its name but don't really care about the value it can provide for them. When people begin to realize that the credentials are just an added value to all that the program provides they will come to the realization that working on an idea that makes an impact for the right reason is far more important than those credentials.

Re: Are you building a company, or your credentials?

#53

Post by jsfeit81 »

Well put. The one thing I'd add, that isn't immediately stated in this article, is the importance of MISSION as part of the entrepreneurial process. Product is key, of course, as are opportunity and the skills to capture it. But there are going to be crap days in the entrepreneurial process, and as was stated in the article, the product may pivot. The mission, however -- the passion -- will be the key to reaching all the tomorrows en route to success. Great post!

Re: Are you building a company, or your credentials?

#54

Post by [deleted] »

jonnathanson wrote: post #17
vasco wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Or is life simply a contest to see who can build the most prestigious obituary?" Life is what you make of it. If checking boxes doesn't make you happy, don't do it.

"If checking boxes doesn't make you happy, don't do it." What I'm asking is whether checking boxes really makes anyone happy. I mean, truly happy. Don't get me wrong; I went through a lengthy box-checking phase that lasted about 20 years. Checking a given box made me happy only until the next box appeared on the horizon. The whole thing seemed like a cosmic treadmill. I think there's something admirable in the sheer…

[deleted]

Re: Are you building a company, or your credentials?

#55

Post by _delirium »

_dps wrote: post #47
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>given long-standing academic hostilities towards the business of being in business Don't you mean the long-standing hostility of business towards research academia? It goes both ways, bro, and I've seen a lot more hostility from "entrepreneurs" towards the prospect of looking at academic research material than I have from academics towards the prospect of making money.

Could you elaborate? In my experience the relationship is highly asymmetrical, in that the two communities are talking past each other (disclosure: former academic who is now doing a startup). (Caricatured) Businesses think most of academics is useless in the sense of not creating profits or anything actionable. They don't have any opinion of its merit in a Platonic sense. They've just done an ROI calculation and sai…

I often see that, but I also often see the reverse: academics just not interested in business or even positive on it, but business people who see themselves as "too good for" academia.

A lot of business people (and people in tech) have strongly negative views of academics that seem to verge on animosity, not just lack of interest; sentiment along the lines of "those who can't do, teach" and "ivory-tower wankery". And a lot of academics have moderate-to-positive views of industry, especially in tech; collaborations with industry are pretty common, especially in certain areas of research like systems and storage.

Re: Are you building a company, or your credentials?

#57

Post by ahi »

jonnathanson wrote: post #11

I question what the relentless seeker of credentials is trying to achieve. Not just here, but in general. If life is an infinite set of boxes to be checked, what's the point of it all? It seems our society places an unduly large value on achievement, rather than accomplishment. The point of going to a top school is to say you've gone to a top school. The point of working at McKinsey or Goldman is to put it on your re…

Social validation is a powerful force with good and bad consequences.

Re: Are you building a company, or your credentials?

#58

Post by _dps »

_delirium wrote: post #55
_dps wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate? In my experience the relationship is highly asymmetrical, in that the two communities are talking past each other (disclosure: former academic who is now doing a startup). (Caricatured) Businesses think most of academics is useless in the sense of not creating profits or anything actionable. They don't have any opinion of its merit in a Platonic sense. They've just done an ROI calculation and sai…

I often see that, but I also often see the reverse: academics just not interested in business or even positive on it, but business people who see themselves as "too good for" academia. A lot of business people (and people in tech) have strongly negative views of academics that seem to verge on animosity, not just lack of interest; sentiment along the lines of "those who can't do, teach" and "ivory-tower wankery". And…

Reading your comment, I think I could be giving the business caricature too much credit; I've certainly heard the "ivory-tower wankery" line.

I guess I always interpreted it as a dismissive (rather than hostile) attitude, but you make a good point. There's a strong case to be made that deep in its soul business believes it does all the "real work" whereas academics merely speculate about what work someone might do some day.

Re: Are you building a company, or your credentials?

#59

Post by jasonkester »

geofflewis wrote: post #44
zerostar07 wrote: post #37

That font is unreadable

Fixed now.

Are you sure? I still see a page full of ugly pixelated courier-esque font, with 3px-wide "i" characters distracting from being able to read anything. (Chrome/XP)

Please, bloggers of the world. If you don't understand fonts or how to correctly embed fonts into a web page in a way that looks good cross-platform and not just on your machine, just use web-safe fonts.

Re: Are you building a company, or your credentials?

#60

Post by digitalzombie »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #49
_dps wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate? In my experience the relationship is highly asymmetrical, in that the two communities are talking past each other (disclosure: former academic who is now doing a startup). (Caricatured) Businesses think most of academics is useless in the sense of not creating profits or anything actionable. They don't have any opinion of its merit in a Platonic sense. They've just done an ROI calculation and sai…

My take, complete with caricatures: Businesses think academia generates nothing useful. Not ideas, not programs, just a bunch of papers. Businesses, unfortunately, mostly don't read or follow these papers and dissertations. Academics mostly don't want to "waste time" implementing anything that is, from their point of view, 25-40 years behind the times. For a nice example of the dichotomy at work, look at Golang. It's…

I just want to be fair to business: Sometime they get it right, Erlang is an example. It's great for telecom, and maybe more. Horrible at numerical stuff.
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