another POV is two people who are willing to risk a lot of money on pre-seed stage companies - no traction, only people and an idea - have arrived at a lot of the same mechanics for such investing
the better question is: how do these two investors differentiate themselves?
A classmate of mine dropped out to do this. Failed, and ended up picking up later to finish the last two years of college. It really didn’t seem to have slowed them down, and finishing college a few years later (with some startup founders experience) seems to have been overall good. Unfortunately did end up going to Boston Consulting Group from on-campus recruiting, so not a great end to the story, but historically that’s a high-ish paying and hard to get job.
I get the feeling only very affluent and well-supported people follow this path, and they probably don't need THiel's money to do it. The vast majority don't have a few years at this stage of their life to play the lottery.
Yeah, I hung out with one of the early batches of these people (my former supervisor was involved) and would agree that they tended to be from better off families. How much of that was the Ivy league selection bias vs anything else I dunno though.
It seems kind of the opposite to me. YC is allowing you to finish school. You don't need to drop out.
another POV is two people who are willing to risk a lot of money on pre-seed stage companies - no traction, only people and an idea - have arrived at a lot of the same mechanics for such investing
the better question is: how do these two investors differentiate themselves?
In fairness, while I’m sure it didn’t work out for all of them, one of these students became one of the youngest self made billionaires in history
He did it to the smartest kid in our CS class. I feel bad now because I feel like he deserves a degree.
A classmate of mine dropped out to do this. Failed, and ended up picking up later to finish the last two years of college. It really didn’t seem to have slowed them down, and finishing college a few years later (with some startup founders experience) seems to have been overall good. Unfortunately did end up going to Boston Consulting Group from on-campus recruiting, so not a great end to the story, but historically that’s a high-ish paying and hard to get job.
I get the feeling only very affluent and well-supported people follow this path, and they probably don't need THiel's money to do it. The vast majority don't have a few years at this stage of their life to play the lottery.
Yeah, I hung out with one of the early batches of these people (my former supervisor was involved) and would agree that they tended to be from better off families. How much of that was the Ivy league selection bias vs anything else I dunno though.
He'll receive plenty of opportunities regardless of degree so I don't see why you feel sorry for him.
He would have made a fantastic professor in my opinion. But I think also, certain opportunities just require a degree on a policy level.
Doesn't mean that this was a good thing for them. For example, many kid actors who become rich and famous are not happy.
I mean... is it self-made if a billionaire helped you?
Or weirdo Russ Hanneman vibes who bought a company called The Lady so he could use his phone as a parental remote control to raise his kid with AI:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGy5SGTuAGI&t=217s
A company I'm funding, we call it The Lady.
I press the button, and The Lady tells Aspen when it's time for bed, time to take a bath, when his fucking mother's here to pick him up.
I get to be his friend, and she's the bad guy.
I've disrupted fatherhood!