Why I dropped out of college for Y Combinator | Hacker News Reader

Why I dropped out of college for Y Combinator

brandonpaton.com

42 pointscj52 comments

While obviously stories like this work out for some people--I think the general advice of dropping out of college to start a startup is a very bad idea. First, maybe 5% of people are driven/motivated enough to actually have a chance of making that decision work out. Second, odds are your startup will fail and you may need to fall back on that degree to get a new job.

I would also argue that there are missed opportunities by leaving school early. Some of my best professional relationships started at Michigan State and they continue to help me build my career.

Also, $200K+ in student loan debt? Where the hell was he going?

EDIT: Also, why not just start the damn company while you're still in school? I'm sorry, but I had more free time in college than I can remember and having a side project was not a huge deal. No different than when people start their business on the side while still maintaining their 9-5.

EDIT 2: Full disclosure: I work for MSU as an adjunct so I have a strong financial interest in people getting their degrees (especially in STEM fields!).

It says in the article - Boston University. It's roughly $56k per year[1].

[1] http://www.bu.edu/admissions/apply/costs-aid-scholarships/tu...

Ouch--the thought of that debt is just staggering. That is currently more than my mortgage and student loan combined. BU is a great school--not for $200K though. I can't image that there are that many degrees in which $200K is worth it...

Well that is just dumb.

If you're young and don't know what you want to study, and change your major a few times, then yes, you should not be doing it while paying $56k a year. Leaving to go work for a while would be smarter until you lock it down a bit more.

But just drop the "i left BU to do awesome work" thing and how much academia held you back from doing that awesome work.

As a current Boston University student, in a major with one of the highest starting salaries - I can certainly say that 200k is truly not worth the money regardless of major.

Any student not on scholarship, who is paying that full amount, is better off dropping out and getting a cheaper.

Exactly. The majority of startups fail. The majority of college degrees are worth it.

Before anyone chimes in- yes, I think there is a debate to be had about whether they should be worth it. As an example, I am a Politics and History grad that develops web sites for a living. I do not use my degree, yet every job out there requires a college education. But that's besides the point, here.

I observe the opposite. The developer ads I've seen almost always say "college degree or equivalent experience". For a good developer who wants to stay a developer, college is a waste of money. It might be great for other reasons though.

Don't bet on it. I have been consulting for many years, and the majority of my clients discount those with no college degree (doesn't usually matter what in), if they consider them at all. I don't really like to admit it, and I know many counter-examples personally, but this is generally my default view as well.

It might be the city. I moved from a city where there was a lot of silliness like that. Now I'm in a city with a lot of tech jobs. I haven't had an education section on my resume for a long time through many interviews; I usually get the job. No interviewer even mentioned the omission. (Although one did express surprise later that he hadn't noticed it!)

Yup. I went to a dirt cheap state university and came out with no debt and a great engineering degree. I can't imagine coming out with roughly the same thing and $200k in debt.

>Also, why not just start the damn company while you're still in school?

It worked for Zuckerberg.

Where'd you go to school?

North Carolina State

It's never going to be on top of the rankings (except for value), but I think that's the nature of it being inexpensive: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_...

35K tuition + 15k room and board is not all that pricey for a private school. I work at Notre Dame, where the 50k figure is a couple of years out of date. Goes up 5% each year, like clockwork. Typing that out literally made me nauseous. I personally know a bunch of smart kids that, while they are getting a good education, are just going to be crushed by those numbers.

I agree on starting a company while in school. Your schedule is crazy in college, but I'm fairly certain most students have more free time in school than they have when they work.

At school, you can create connections and meet people that could help you along the way. I know of several people who started something while in school, with their school friends.

If you gain traction, and start making money, then maybe then you could drop out of school.

A good developer shouldn't need to fall back on a degree; they usually aren't required to get a job, I've seen.

Went to UCLA - when I took out a loan for a year the estimated cost was ~$27k a year (In-state). Friends of mine who were international students were already paying $50k+ at UCLA.

Could easily imagine $50k/year for private schools.

And not to forget the $30K/year (average income of a high school grad) that you are missing out on by spending time in school instead of working. Not knocking the education, but it is something that needs to be considered.

For those who are about to say that there are no jobs without a degree, recent data suggests that people fresh out of high school have more job opportunities than fresh college graduates and the vast majority of the population, at all ages, are employed without a degree.

Top private schools are often effectively cheaper than UCLA for most people. For instance, Stanford waives tuition for students from households in the US with income in the bottom 80% (under $100k). For students from households in the bottom 50% or so, they also waive room and board.

Which is ironic? is maybe the word? given how difficult it is for people from families in the bottom 50% on income earners to get into Stanford; that's something like 15% of the each incoming class. Admissions at Stanford is need-blind, but many important college admissions criteria are proxies for need.

I would argue that opportunities are missed because of being in school too. Like in engineering, life is about managing tradeoffs and choosing the solution that best fits your individual goals.

Blanket statements of "you should go to school" or "you should drop out" are meaningless because they ignore the conditions under which the choices are being made. It is kind of like saying "you should use Ruby," even if the problem space turns out to be small embedded electronics.

It's good to equip potential students with information, but trying to sell them one way or another seems kind of dangerous. You're going to leave them trying to run a massive Ruby on Rails application on an 8-bit micro, so to speak.

> Also, why not just start the damn company while you're still in school?

Because it's not nearly as dramatic!

Your point about free time in college is especially relevant. YC might require a full-time commitment, but college is the absolute perfect time to try and bootstrap something. Never again after college will there be such a perfect confluence of available, talented co-founders, ample time and low cost of living.

On a more flippant note, dropping out to launch a startup isn't that much different to dropping out with a band: it's the same 'take a wild shot at the big time' thing, only with fewer girls. Even if you hit the really big time there's still value in a degree: Brian May from Queen went back to finish his.

Good luck to the OP of course. I hope he's one of the successful ones.

I think the general advice of dropping out of college to start a startup is a very bad idea.

I agree. There's no rush; there will still be plenty of ideas left to work on after college.

It's really interesting how people corner themselves into false dichotomies.

Why limit yourself to one thing when you can have it all? Why not go to college, get your degree, then go all in with a startup?

No one says you can't go to a state school if money is your concern. Additionally, I would say actual classroom learning accounted for just about half of what I enjoyed from college. The other half was just meeting all sorts of people with different interests, girls, partying, etc. Different strokes, I guess.

There's also plenty of college left to work on after ideas.

Maybe taking a break is a better term, but I don't understand why "dropping out" means you will never get a degree.

Dropping out has come to mean you will never get a degree because most people only consider college in the first place because they perceive a workplace advantage to having a degree. When they get out into the real world and realize they can live comfortably without one, there is little reason to go back. Someone who loves learning and is in college for reasons not related to future employment is not likely to leave over an idea in the first place.

Because of that, the number of people who leave and then go back is significantly small. Though I think you make good points anyway.

"plenty of ideas left to work on after college"

HN is certainly full of plenty of disclosures and comments about that pitfalls of startups and success. (And things like what you just said above as if you are going to tell people to drop out of college or something..) But yet people will always focus on what they want to see, just like in a casino, which is the winners (that's why the machines make noise). On HN, TC etc. the bells are always ringing and the effect is quite clear. And obviously in the traditional media as well. Everybody wants to be a superstar. And thinks they can be a superstar or should have been a superstar. People apologetically talk about how they have chosen to be happy instead with their little "lifestyle" business and every now and then people acknowledge that that's ok.

This is really no different than what happens in any industry which is a pyramid. Entertainment, sports as two examples.

People have to take reality into account when making life decisions. But I can see how difficult that is now that there are more examples that younger people can see of people their age being great successes.

Added: "great successes" meaning the typical trappings of success even if that means just getting funded or even picked for YC.

The attempt to become a superstar is rewarding even if you don't make it.

Damn mobile. Sorry for the accidental downvote, PG.

I dropped out of school for AngelPad too.

What I've found out is that it's never really about dropping out and the fascination with college dropouts is nonsensical. I never went to college expecting to drop out; the timing just made it happen. Furthermore, my lack of a degree doesn't make me a better or more successful entrepreneur.

Dropping out isn’t an accomplishment, any more than money is a sign of achievement. Sometimes, but not always, it’s simply a symptom of success.

I think if you were to look at all college dropouts (not just those that leave to go to SF) you would see it's certainly not a symptom of success. There are definitely successful people without degrees but it is the exception rather than the rule.

It also depends on your definition of successful. By most definitions (including mine) this guy isn't. YC may change that, but it may not. I don't think it will have much to do with his degree, or lack thereof.

Monetary success is an exception to begin with. Only 5% of the North American population earn more than $90,000 per year. Leaving me curious about your exception statement. Of the people in that top 5%, or even 1% if your data better supports it, what does the education distribution look like?

Please take this with a grain of salt - I could only find it on Alternet[1] and I looked for the Gallup source they're referencing but shouldn't find it. The article is from December of 2011 as well.

In the top 1% of US households (those with an income above ~$550,000 a year according to this article, but I've seen lower-end figures ranging from $380-660k/yr), 72% have a college degree v. 31% of the lower 99%. "Nearly half" of the top 1% has some form of post-graduate education v. less than 1 in 5 of the 99%.

A lot of the 1% are CEOs, licensed professionals (JDs, MDs) and Wall Street executives, all positions the require baccalaureate or postgraduate degrees in almost every case.

[1] http://www.alternet.org/story/153341/10_fun_facts_about_the_...

Thanks for the pointer. I was able to find a Gallup link: http://www.gallup.com/poll/151310/u.s.-republican-not-conser...

By the numbers, it seems that having completed a high school diploma or less puts you in better standing than having completed just a degree (27% vs 23%), though a post-graduate degree is the clear winner.

So, it seems that if you are not willing to go through post-graduate studies (which, I assume, is primarily limited to the professional degrees you mentioned – MD, JD, etc.), you are slightly better off dropping out or not going to college at all in terms of achieving success as defined by the top 1%. That is actually pretty interesting data with regards to the subject of this thread.

Great comment. I'd also address this from the OP:

It seems like the real question isn't dropping out or not; the real question is whether an opportunity arises that makes dropping out and pursuing that opportunity make more sense than continue in school. History clearly shows us that, in some cases, dropping out and pursuing opportunity is the better move (Gates, Zuckerberg, etc. being the famous examples).

If you're dropping out because you think you have vague plans about how you'd like to start a startup, that's probably dumb, but if you're dropping out because you've started startup X, which is going to do Y, and the time is now, then that might be a pretty good idea.

It's great if Brandon got into the YC batch and can pursue his interest in the way he thinks is the best way possible, but I don't see anything in the article that people should use as an excuse to drop out of college for.

I'm happy for Brandon, and it's a fine personal story, but the article made it sound like "I kept procrastinating and getting bad grades, so I dropped out".

There are other ways to address a problem like that. :)

I see such a significant conflict between successfully starting a managing a company and dropping out of school, namely the fact that you constantly have to prove your worth intelligence, and capabilities to the people around you. Perhaps if you were like Mark Zuckerburg, clearly a top student at a top school with a product that had already gained traction, then you could drop out of school without creating significant reasons for people to doubt you. But wouldn't your academic knowledge of the field you're working in be of great use to your start up?

I don't understand why there is this huge sentiment against Brandon's decision. I have written about this a lot, but there is a huge bias against people that believe that

1. college may not be worth it for him personally 2. college may generally be quite overpriced/not worth it.

I'm sure it is a discussion worth having looking at the exploding prices of college.

1. Without being too bold, I think we can all agree that general statements like "Everyone needs to go to college" and "No one should go to college" are useless. Brandon knows best what he knows, what he gains from college and what he loses by staying in it.

2. Now, this discussion happens a lot, but there is always the same question I ask: Would pro-college people say college is worth the 10k/degree sticker price? 100k? 1M? 10M? Yes, college provides great value, some that can't be quantified. Nevertheless, we live in a world with scarce resources, and making a conjecture that for some people going to college might not be worth it shouldn't be too far-fetched. College is being hailed as the holy grail, and I just don't buy it as such.

I think Brandon's post shows that he clearly has thought about it and made a decision for himself, that doesn't come by easily.

Also, Brandon, if you read this, I followed you in your footsteps, just one semester after you :)

Surprised no one quoted this yet: "I avoided computer science because I heard it’s too theoretical and non-practical." OP then enrolled in pre-med, the epitomy of theoretical and non-practical (cramming all the anatomy and cellular biology that make the basis of our medical knowledge, but don't actually help you cure a patient).

I totally agree that CS is theoretical and non-practical, but why is that so shunned? Seems like if someone wants an edge in the technology sector, they had better understand the foundation of computation. From writing formal grammars and understanding Turing machines all the way up to coding a compiler and learning about security are all things I've studied and mostly forgotten, but they help me understand the new problems I'm faced with every day.

A person who practices medicine without doing the course work, internship, and getting the degree is a quack or charlatan or new-age healer. I'm worried a lot of the startup scene is about making a fast buck, not making a solid product. I don't think the tech sector is life-and-death, and it certainly doesn't need PhDs or a licensing board. But you'd think people who want to excel in the field would study it.

The startup scene in Boston is actually pretty amazing. I haven't got to experience living in silicon valley but I got to spend a year at MIT and compared to Cambridge, UK it really is astounding how strong an entrepreneurial network there is there to take advantage of. That said, it might be harder to find in a big place like BU where not everyone is technically focused.

This is the only part of the article I don't agree with:

    In the end, it wouldn’t have benefitted me to stay in school longer, and Y Combinator was too good of an opportunity to pass up.

How do you know there would be no benefit to finishing your degree? It may be beneficial in the short term. However, you have (hopefully) many years to live and making a guess like that is silly, in my opinion.

While I think it is admirable that you got into Hacker News and are following your dream, I think there is something to say about learning to focus and get decent grades, even if you are not into it 100%. It shows that you can stick to some form of an obligation and follow through with something that you may not want to do.

I can't remember exactly which VC said this but here is a paraphrase: Not making it through college when something new comes up doesn't bode well when I give you a ton of money for a long term commitment. Will "something else" come up during that time?

But you can always come back and finish your college. Why do we have this notion all things you need to learn needs to fit in first 25 years of your life?

I think there's a huge disruption coming in education. For every Brandon there are 10 others who maybe don't want to create a startup themselves, but could benefit from a series of internships at startups and larger companies along with a structured reading list.

A couple years ago my last company hired an intern who was about to start 10th grade. He wrote surprisingly good code and learn a lot in the process.

I'm guessing there was a business plan (if yc threw money after them) -- but I don't see it. No ads, no subscription fees. That leaves just selling aggregated consumer data, and doing trend research?

Yeah, I'd rather host my private data somewhere they stay private.

Nice, I'm glad you could find something that makes you happy. Just make sure that you keep at it. You chose not to pursue an education, so if you truly want to be successful, make your resume proof that you know what you're doing.

"My GPA was suffering, despite lots of Adderall, and I had skipped half of the lectures I was supposed to attend."

Wow, I'm not so sure you want to publicly advertise abusing prescription drugs.

Why not just take a year off instead of dropping out?

This is actually a good question. There's no reason that you have to permanently give up formal education to go start a company (or anything else for that matter).

I made exactly this choice (slated to take 2 years off, but same idea), and definitely see myself returning to school in the future. Perhaps when I go back I'll be a wiser person. An even better student. My school says it'll be happy to have me back.

In the meantime, I can pursue my crazy ideas and try things, taking risks I might not like to as I age. Building something whose time has come.

The relevant chorus to the Byrds' song "Turn Turn Turn" goes:

"To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)

There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)

And a time to every purpose, under Heaven"

> drops out of school

> starts "facebook but for X" startup

way to go

the new american dream.

It's certainly not curing cancer or inventing the next generation of transportation. I guess this might be part of the "start small" realization?

It seems like a lot of the college dropouts opting for startups are ultimately limiting themselves from doing the sort of hard problem solving middle-school Brandon wanted to do. I think some level of formal education would be necessary to cure cancer.

Seriously. Yeah, I see people going out and actually making something, but something of value it is not. Praying for this social bubble to pop any day now.

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