Hacker News Reader

Comment by dmarchand90 | Hacker News Reader

It is a mild pet peeve of mine these titles which make it sound like these entrepreneurs weren't doing anything before starting their reputation making companies.

He had already gotten a masters at MIT and a phd from Stanford. From his Wikipedia:

During his 25-year career (1958–1983) at Texas Instruments, he rose up in the ranks to become the group vice president responsible for TI's worldwide semiconductor business.[13] In the late 1970s, when TI's focus turned to calculators, digital watches and home computers, Chang felt like his career focused on semiconductors was at a dead end at TI.[2]

Chang left TI and later became president and chief operating officer of General Instrument Corporation (1984–1985).[14]

So he was already running massive companies by that point anyway haha

View on HN

The main point I see is the age beyond its background in a "very young oriented" startup community. Just see YC.

It is obvious that you cannot build a company such as TSMC coming from nowhere. I don't think it is important that he went to MIT or work for a specific company such as TI. He could study and work in less known places but could had the knowledge, drive and was in the right place to start a business. He is an entrepreneur.

Very hot take for these types of forums, but credentials and connections matter a lot. Maybe they matter less the closer you get to America, but having a degree from MIT or equivalent, opens up enormous doors in the East. So, I would argue, if he “just had the knowledge” the odds would be against him.

My argument was to balance against the age because it is purely neglected in the startup community. Connections and trust could be built around the world, including the United States.

>>[...] credentials and connections matter a lot.

Paul Graham tried to add a bit of nuance to your point in a recent essay[1]: "The empirical evidence is clear on this. If you look at where the largest numbers of successful startups come from, it's pretty much the same as the list of the most selective universities.

I don't think it's the prestigious names of these universities that cause more good startups to come out of them. Nor do I think it's because the quality of the teaching is better. What's driving this is simply the difficulty of getting in. You have to be pretty smart and determined to get into MIT or Cambridge, so if you do manage to get in, you'll find the other students include a lot of smart and determined people."

Also check out the footnote he wrote for the above paragraph. Not that we all take pg's word as startup gospel, but his main point is that connections matter much more than the (final degree) credential.

[1] https://paulgraham.com/google.html

> Paul Graham tried to add a bit of nuance...

America is the most successful entrepreneurial country. full stop.

Neither Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak (at "that" time), Zuckerberg (also, at "that" time), Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and many that are funded by Peter Thiel had undergraduate degrees.

There is a bias and/or cultural regarding entrepreneurship. There is an spectrum between "lifestyle business" and PG/YC definition of a startup. You can be very successful with a company in between and it could perfectly considered a startup or an small and medium-sized entreprises.

> I don't think it is important that he went to MIT or work for a specific company such as TI.

I don't see how the alternative could realistically work. The options are limited. You need very specific type of connections, network, and background for this.

Maybe it didn't have to be this combination specifically but there are very few alternatives that position you for this opportunity. TSMC isn't something you can bootstrap or hack together as an entrepreneur.

That's where big name schools come into play. It's not about the knowledge. It's the networking, recognition, and connections. Connections are a very scarce resource just like gold is.

I am not talking about semiconductors in particular but entrepreneurship.

Hiroshi Yamauchi moved Nintendo to playing cards to electronics on its middle forties. Going to the south and taking away age, Argentina created several unicorns: Auth0, MercadoLibre, Uala, and Satellogic. Galperin studied in USA but Eugenio Pace only studied in Argentina and worked at Microsoft, part in USA. Satellogic founders don't have undegraduate degrees.

On this argument I departed from the idea about age and/or studies and/or previous connections and/or place. It is indisputable that US is the top entrepreneurial country in the world and the one with the most opportunities but to learn the entrepreneurial subject (the top topic in YC/HN) itself you can see further.

Entrepreneurship in semiconductors is its own world. Perhaps to a lesser degree, pharmaceuticals, but it’s a valid consideration that credentials and background help overcome barriers when needing to raise massive amounts of money to get started.

The funny thing is that in less open societies, connections are almost everything in entrepreneurship, off course it also means you need to know how to leverage it.

Not necessarily a positive thing, because it is the same group of politico-business class that capture the same ideas and innovations for themselves. If you have ever seen Shark tank India you will understand what I am saying.

In that respect US Silicon Valley culture seemed like a breath of fresh air, however I feel there are only certain specific combinations of history, economics and culture that enabled this. I doubt it is really possible to bootstrap new crazy ideas easily, one because incumbents are not as laggards as before.

> He could study and work in less known places but could had the knowledge, drive and was in the right place to start a business.

I don't think your take is grounded in reality. The man lived through the tech sector age, and was right there at the exec table of a company that represented the semiconductor industry. For that to happen, he had to build up his academic background.

This isn't something a clueless tech bro is able to get right by winging it on the fly and delivering TEDx talks. You need to know what you are doing, and what you need to have in place.

I don't think GP is saying that a clueless nobody could just "wing it", but that there are plenty of good engineering schools that aren't MIT. You won't get the same connections as you would at MIT, but you still learn all about the Shockley Ideal Diode Equation.

on the other hand, maybe stories like this can get a 55 year old CEO or CTO to break off and do something cool.

I doubt that people with established careers in top executive positions can't lead unless they read an article on someone having done that already.

yeah but it could still be the push that a 55 years old exec needs to go off into the wilderness and start their own thing.

maybe not the article, but the data that people of an uncommon age have been successful doing something.

It's like learning how many people 55 are meeting online and getting married, or starting an exercise program and doing some event, etc.

someone is setting an example, and this documents it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com