It's time for Entrepreneur University/Startup Ninja School

I've always wondered if Y Combinator is modeled after the English university system. As I understand it, at a school like Oxford, you:

1. Work independently on your research

2. Meet once a week or so with your tutor to discuss your progress

3. Attend lectures during the week, but this is less formal than in the US, where you have to register for classes and get a grade at the end

At YC, you:

1. Work independently on your startup

2. Meet with Paul Graham once a week or so to discuss your progress

3. Attend 1-2 talks each week at YC that are germane to your company

Adding "Ninja" to the descriptors of the school isn't particularly useful or accurate. Certainly I'd never attend any ninja school that didn't provide me with an accreditation in ninjitsu at the end.

Also, we already have this. It's called Y Combinator.

How many would actually go to this? I would argue most people don't want this. The perception for many people is still - be a lawyer or a doctor or go work at a big company. There's a reason that when my company goes recruiting at Northwestern U (we're a relatively small consulting company that gets pretty cool projects) nobody wants to work for us. Rather, they flock to the Accentures, IBMs and the GEs of the world.

Great post. If a prospective MBA student thought about their 150K as seed capital, they'd already be better off in terms of networking and learning if they started a company instead of going to school for 2 years. It would be even better if a small part of that budget could help get entree to your proposed ninja school just to take some of the inefficiency out of figuring out things alone