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Comment by tomcam | Hacker News Reader

1. The Harvard part of the degree is completely irrelevant

2. His parents’ home happen to be nearby, but note that was a semi-lucky coincidence. He was living in Silicon Valley when he cold-called all of those institutions. One of the few that actually answered was near his parents’ house.

Here is the relevant passage: “So he cold-emailed and called more than 2,000 facilities across the country.“

This guy will succeed because he was willing to cold call 2,000 places despite having a Harvard degree. He was willing to live in a conference room despite having a Harvard degree. He will succeed at whatever he does and it wouldn’t matter if he went to Cal State Fullerton.

In my opinion this story is intrinsically sensational because he is such a stud. A guy willing to go this far is a guy YC is lucky to have.

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So I will never know the answer to this question- but I would love to know if his parents knew the admin staff or two degrees away (or if he, himself, did).

I don't find is coincidental that it ended up being close to his folks.

I would imagine a backstory something along the lines of "I've got this solid idea for fixing a big problem, let me reach out and find some partners" and of course he tells his parents. As things progress on (and perhaps tend to fizzle) he or his parents push a little harder on "coming back home" and working local. Don't get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong, bad, etc etc here, I just bet something like this is how we got here.

As for sleeping in the conference room... well he's building tech to be used onsite- and I would expect a not insignificant amount of the types of medical issues he's working on providing this service for happen through the midnight hours and whether he chose to be on-site it shows real dedication to what he's trying to do, for sure.

As for the degree- you're not entirely wrong- it's pure conjecture without knowing more- but I don't think we can assume having a top name education doesn't help with funding, YC or not.

Edit: fixed complete miswording on my intention

>1. The Harvard part of the degree is completely irrelevant

Except It's a pretty good indicator of his socioeconomic background and the numerous opportunities that were made available to him in his life that others didn't have. Apart from that yeah..

Oh and also the copious networking opportunities it gave him and access to circles that others don't have. yeah.....

Instead of past opportunities, his Harvard degree gives him future opportunities. As in, something to fall back on when the startup fails. That gives him the advantage (risk tolerance) that other people don’t have (eg. single mom). So, agreeing with you but for different reasons. Harvard degree matters.

Not knocking his persistence and really like that his company helps people instead of doing facial recognition emojis.

Anyone can apply to Harvard, and they all have to be good enough to create the opportunity to be accepted in the first place.

Except realistically, 80% of harvard grads come from high income households.

So at least 20% don't? Given the high standard of qualifications which are obviously easier to meet when you have more resources, that's pretty good. We're talking about the #1 school here, which is also free for any low-income families.

Yeah, 20% come from families under 65k family income.

stanford is #1

Maybe it's more like 80% from the families that value education in general, and not surprisingly this leads to higher income?

Is that unrepresentative of performance in K12?

Yeah, well, exactly 0 would probably have contacted him if he didn't have the degree. He's not that much of a stud, most founders would die for an opportunity like that.

Also, mass emailing a list of 2000 isn't exactly cold calling. Odds are good he actually called this one and did the full press because his parents DID live nearby.

That all being said, the moral of the story is still very sound.

I think the Harvard part matters at least a tiny bit. A Harvard medical degree means your opportunity cost to do the startup thing is (marginally imo) higher than if you had a Cal State Fullerton medical degree. And obviously the storyline "ZOMG he has an elite degree and still does thus" is more interesting for the random reader.

>The Harvard part of the degree is completely irrelevant

When Venture capitalists and angel investors decide to invest, brand name helps decide who they invest in.

Is not everything, but its not nothing either.

At 100 calls a week (super doable) that's only 20 weeks. This is not some Herculean task

That sort of misses the point. It is pretty soul destroying to cold call that many people.

...And yet articles about call center grunts probably don’t garner front page interest in the same way that “founder” does.

Most call center grunts aren’t also tireless, gutsy, visionary, MD/businesspeople. Also they get a guaranteed salary; he didn’t. Source: am former call center grunt.

There are plenty of people who have inside sales jobs that are commission only. Most sales reps at recruiting firms with split desks would laugh at the notion that 100 calls a week is soul crushing. Most of them are placing 120+ cold calls a day.

5 months of your life calling nursing homes? Not Herculean, Sisyphean.

But this worked, Sisyphus never won.

You’re saying nobody has ever cold called 2000 institutions and failed to succeed ? What evidence do you have for this ?

What evidence do you have that I made any such assertion?

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