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Comment by gamble | Hacker News Reader

One commonality between many successful dropouts like Zuckerberg and Gates is that they dropped out to do something specific, not because they were too lazy or undisciplined to finish. Had the right opportunity not come along, I suspect many celebrity dropouts would have cruised to graduation.

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Of course a lot of students who are lazy and undisciplined do not think that they are lazy and undisciplined

In fact, I'd imagine Zuckerberg would be better off both personally and professionally had he finished his undergraduate education.

Moreover, I think it's interesting to think if Facebook would be different had it been founded by post-graduation Zuckerberg. Better? Worse? I bet the Facebook experience would be richer had Zuckerberg been more mature when he crafted the initial vision.

That is a pretty bold claim. It sounds ridiculous to me.

Also, how can someone consumed with an idea finish school? It is that singular purpose that drive Zuckerberg to succeed. You can't just put that on hold and finish up a degree.

Both of these claims are tossed out as random assertions with no support. Why would Zuckerberg be better off if he had finished undergrad? Why would the Facebook experience have been richer if crafter by a post-college founder?

That is one of the most absurd claims I have ever heard on HN. However, I do not think it should be downvoted, because it was made in good faith.

I like to think of it as they went out and made the opportunity happen for themselves instead of waiting for the opportunity to present itself.

But they didn't drop out to find the opportunity, is his point.

The uber-point is really, people who are bright enough to found $1B businesses are also bright enough to realize that you don't leave college until you have the idea moving along a good path.

To put it another way, are there any $1B SW companies started by people who either didn't go to college or dropped out of college before they had started creating product for what would be this company? I honestly can't think of any (but that doesn't mean there aren't any -- and it should be easy to enumerate since there's probably only 20 or so billion dollar SW companies).

Twitter & Apple.

I'll give you half-credit for Apple. Jobs was out of school, but Woz was still at UCB and withdrew after they had already begun selling (but before the company was officially formed).

And I think half credit for Twitter. I don't know much about Twitter, but it appears Dorsey was still in college when they started Twitter.

But in any case two pretty good examples.

If you count Woz as "still at UCB" because he was on a leave of absence, then you have to count Gates as "still at Harvard" and Page & Brin as "still at Stanford" even today. Officially, they never actually dropped out of their universities - they just remain on perpetual leave of absence, and could go back next semester if they wanted to. Woz was at HP because he didn't have money for the next semester of Berkeley, and he thought he would always be at HP, and even after Apple started selling things and went public, he remained officially on a leave of absence, and actually did go back after his plane crash.

It's actually really hard to drop out or fail out of an elite college - I tried a couple times when I was still in undergrad. They always want you to take a leave of absence because then you don't show up in the dropout statistics that drag down their U.S. News rankings. This is why it's not really all that risky to drop out of college; you can always go back and pick up where you left off, but you'll have a much better idea of why you're there.

I was definitely thinking about Evan Williams for Twitter. He dropped out of college because he always knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur, but had no idea what sort of company he would start. I don't really know about Dorsey and Biz Stone's backgrounds.

OK, you get 1.75 points. :-)

(Woz did go back to Berkeley later, and got his undergraduate degree in 1986.)

Yes and no. Gates had a large amount of experience with programming in an era where most people had not seen a computer, and had very wealthy parents who supported him dropping out. Now you may argue that he "made the opportunity" by convincing his parents that this whole software thing was a good idea, etc., but the reality is that he was born at the right time, in the right place, with the right set of parents, etc. This is not to lessen what he did: he grabbed the opportunity by the tail. He did no less than any other wildly successful entrepreneur. But for a vast majority of college students out there, the resources and experiences he had at the time are untouchable. To use an analogy: you can have all the willpower, drive, motivation, etc. to move the world, but you still need that damn big lever.

I'd also argue even including Gates in a list of typical college dropouts. He was taking graduate level computer science and mathematics classes his first and second year in college. Anyone who can take handle graduate level technical classes has shown a decent grasp of the undergraduate material.

That's an interesting point (re: doing something specific) which applies not just to college students. The truth is once you have clarity and vision, what ever it is you are doing seems like poor usage of your time. Having said, it's not easy arrive at that kind of clarity or vision.

One can argue that there is no clarity of vision involved. Rather, for every individual like Gates who gets lucky with a good business opportunity, there may be many equally qualified individuals who do not get a lucky break with a good idea.

It is always assumed that success and failure in business corresponds directly to skill. I doubt this assumption and suspect luck has a lot to do with it. Once you get your first success earning you several million, many doors open to you.

why did steve jobs drop out?

To figure out who he was and what he wanted in life.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html "all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it."

but he continued listening lectures - he just stopped paying. Apparently he was smart enough to realize that the knowledge is worth much more than the degree.

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