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Comment by pg | Hacker News Reader

Depends on the startup. Starting a startup will teach you more about startups, certainly. But you could end up on a local maximum. For example (this is just a conjecture of course) the Google founders might not have known enough to build Google at 19, and if they hadn't stayed in school, they might never have learned enough to.

In any case, as you say, the goal of college is not to make one a better startup founder.

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I wonder if the flip side of this claim can also be true in certain cases. Could staying in college prevent one from achieving a global maximum? For example (this is just conjecture of course) Steve Jobs might have had too much debt if he finished earning a degree at Reed College, would not have been able to participate in home brew computer meetups and would have been unable to strengthen his relationship with Steve Wozniak. These factors likely would have prevented him from founding Apple.

Silicon Valley is a truly special place and I think there is a lot of value in taking a year or two off of college and try working at a startup, traveling and/or pursuing whatever else seems cool and worthwhile. Then you can decide whether returning to college is the right thing for you...

I think so.

Debt is not even the biggest concern. My biggest concern is the mentality to avoid failure at all costs. Since the world's reward system isn't structured to always reward effort, school (imo) teaches you to pass, not excel. And, as I understand, the passing grade for a startup is to excel. See the disconnect?

Except for that, college years seem to be the most formative years of one's life. I wouldn't be into startups if I didn't come do post-secondary. I wouldn't even know how to code if I didn't come here. Best experience of my life.

> In any case, as you say, the goal of college is not tomake one a better startup founder.

There's the issue. College is obviously still a great way for a lot of people who don't plan to start a startup to "accidentially" learn skills and do projects that could be useful for starting a startup. Both Zuckerberg and Gates come to mind.

However, what should young people who know in their heart/mind/gut that they want to become an entrepreneur do?

I would rather spend a couple of years networking, trying and failing on a small scale in business while learning as much as possible through books/other cheap or free material than spending $30000+ on something that possibly wouldn't get me any closer to the goal.

Do you already know some of that free material, and do you spend everyday of your life learning at least a little bit more of that free material? Do you build things at a weekly rate? If not, then you should probably go to college, as you will learn a lot faster and network while inside there (given that you socialize with other dudes a lot). Maybe someone else has a different view, as I'm in Canada and don't spend as much on education so it's easier for me. -- Just saying this paragraph to people thinking about not going to college now.

Zuck and Gates were successful dropouts because they went to college and learned that it wasn't what they expected. Too much courses to take that they didn't like, classes not going fast enough, social life not as good as other people said, not much meaning in going to classes (basically fill in x reason).

Not all startups are of the internet application variety. My old boss did a startup in his late 30's, early 40's. He drew on a PhD and more than a decade of experience in wireless communications. That was a prerequisite for the type of startup he wanted to do. Heck, 19 he probably wouldn't even have known about the problem that the startup was trying to solve.

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