In
response to a similar question about dropping out I noted that, as an
active angel investor and venture capitalist, I have a simple policy of
not investing in dropouts. Period. This stirred up a fair bit of
vituperation, but also prompted a number of polite, private messages to
me from young entrepreneurs asking why I felt this way. Here is how I
responded:
Why I do not believe it is in
your best interest to drop out of college, and why I would decide not to
take the risk of investing in you if you do (regardless of the fact
that Jobs, Gates and Zuckerberg dropped out):
If
your goal in life is to spend your working career in a specific,
functional job, such as being a plumber or software coder or auto
mechanic, then vocational school and a basic functional grounding in
verbal and mathematical literacy may be all that you need...provided you
will do that one thing for the rest of your life.
But
if you are planning to be an entrepreneur who will be creating new
businesses, and asking other people to invest in your vision, there are
many reasons why finishing college makes a lot of sense. Here are my top
ten:
1) It gives you a much larger picture of the world,
an understanding of how things fit together, and a broad view of
history so that you can learn from the successes and failures of others.
You will be able to think critically and think 'outside the box'
because you will have the ability to analogize things in your current
space to a much larger historical canvas. Whether you're taking business
lessons from Sun Tzu or Machiavelli or Andrew Carnegie, entrepreneurial
lessons from Johann Gutenberg or Thomas Edison, ethical and
philosophical lessons from Plato or George Bernard Shaw, or human
behavioral lessons from Charles Dickens or Sigmund Freud, you will
simply have a larger toolbox from which to evolve and implement your
vision.
2) It will expose you to opportunities and experiences
that you are likely to not come across if left to your own devices. How
will you know if you might have loved being an art historian, if you
have never been exposed to the discipline of Art History? If you came
from a high school without a computer science department, an
introductory course in CS might set your life on a whole new path. This
extends to every corner of the academic experience: most people do not,
on their own, get exposed to a dozen different fields of interest unless
they were lucky enough to come from a Renaissance family. I found my
lifelong passion in the Book Arts at college, something of which I would
have been completely unaware had I dropped out.
3) It will give you at least a basic grounding in areas that are not necessarily comfortable for you—regardless
of what career you pursue. This will provide you with knowledge and
skills you would typically avoid if you only do things you like. I am a
business/ marketing/ financial person rather than a techie, but the
basic understanding of technology and computer systems that I learned
from my undergraduate computer science courses has stood me in very good
stead for decades, and informed all of my entrepreneurial activities.
Similarly, for someone who lives to code, learning about other
disciplines such as marketing, finance and, yes, even philosophy and
ethics, will likely make you a better coder, and definitely make you a
more valuable team member and entrepreneur. This basic knowledge, like
written and mathematical literacy, will give you at least a foundational
background when interacting with people from other disciplines.
4) You will learn the ability to communicate effectively
to an extent that is much more difficult outside the academic
environment. Unless you are one of those rare people blessed with the
natural talents of a William Shakespeare or Frank McCourt, your studies
in college will give you the tools to persuasively share your ideas and
visions with all of those whose support you will need in life:
employees, customers, investors, partners, team members, lovers,
children. As Francis Bacon wrote, "Reading maketh a full man, conference
a ready man, and writing an exact man". For better or worse, the only
time that a large majority of people will have the [enforced] discipline
to spend time reading great works, writing lengthy papers with critical
feedback, and taking concentrated classes in speech, debate and
theater...is in college.
5) You will meet a broad array of diverse people,
much broader than you are likely to get involved with in any specific
job or industry. College admissions offices spend most of their time
assembling a diverse class, you will find yourself, willingly or not, in
a stew of people with different personalities, interests, religions,
sexual and political orientations. No matter how eclectic your
upbringing, this is likely to broaden your perspective, enhance your
tolerance and improve your ability to work and play well with others.
6) College is a four-year commitment,
which is just about the same time commitment you would be expected to
put into a startup. If you show by your actions that you don't have the
self-discipline to finish what you started, and are unable to defer the
instant gratification of working on your new business until you
graduate, that signals to me that you may well do the same thing if I
fund you in a startup...and the last thing I want is for you to run off
to the next shiny opportunity without finishing the startup in which
I've invested my hard-earned cash.
7) College is a one-time investment in enhancing the entire rest of your career
and it is highly unlikely that, despite your best intentions, you will
ever return to finish a degree after you've dropped out. But once you've
had the experience and earned the degree, you have something that will
stand you in good stead for the rest of your life. In contrast, the fact
is that (a) if you are truly an entrepreneur, you will have virtually
infinite opportunities to start or be involved with new businesses
throughout your life, and since (b) the vast majority of startups fail,
the odds are extremely high that you will be trading a lifetime
foundation for a short term, fleeting experience...and always regret
"the road not taken".
8) The credential has inherent value,
and decrying or denying this fact is not being realistic. In life and
in business, there are some things that—for better or worse—simply require
a college degree as a pre-requisite. Why on earth would you want to
forever set a hurdle in your own path, and block yourself off from
opportunities, by being so short-sighted at this early stage of the
game?
9) Putting this investment into perspective, and taking the long view of your life, is a sign of maturity.
Going for the quick hit of dropping out because you are not willing to
put into your academic career the amount of work it takes to 'do it
right' is a sign of immaturity. And experience has shown me that
investing in immature entrepreneurs is often a recipe for failure. (If
you take issue with the statement "not willing to put in the work".and tell me that you have done all of this, and more, during your
college years. I sure as heck didn't, but I remain in awe of those who
did.)
10) If you have discussed this with your
parents, school advisors, or other mentors, the odds are very high that
they strongly suggested you stay in school and finish your degree. If
that is indeed the case, the fact that you are rejecting reasoned advice
from mature, experienced people who know, trust and support you, would
give me pause to consider whether you will turn out to be the kind of person who simply won't listen to advice from me either...and the fact is that I consider my advice to be an even bigger investment in you than the cash I bring to the table.
There
are many other reasons why I believe so strongly in the value of
completing a college education, but these should give you a start in
understanding why I have made the decision to simply not invest in
dropouts.
In
response to a similar question about dropping out I noted that, as an
active angel investor and venture capitalist, I have a simple policy of
not investing in dropouts. Period. This stirred up a fair bit of
vituperation, but also prompted a number of polite, private messages to
me from young entrepreneurs asking why I felt this way. Here is how I
responded:
Why I do not believe it is in
your best interest to drop out of college, and why I would decide not to
take the risk of investing in you if you do (regardless of the fact
that Jobs, Gates and Zuckerberg dropped out):
If
your goal in life is to spend your working career in a specific,
functional job, such as being a plumber or software coder or auto
mechanic, then vocational school and a basic functional grounding in
verbal and mathematical literacy may be all that you need...provided you
will do that one thing for the rest of your life.
But
if you are planning to be an entrepreneur who will be creating new
businesses, and asking other people to invest in your vision, there are
many reasons why finishing college makes a lot of sense. Here are my top
ten:
1) It gives you a much larger picture of the world,
an understanding of how things fit together, and a broad view of
history so that you can learn from the successes and failures of others.
You will be able to think critically and think 'outside the box'
because you will have the ability to analogize things in your current
space to a much larger historical canvas. Whether you're taking business
lessons from Sun Tzu or Machiavelli or Andrew Carnegie, entrepreneurial
lessons from Johann Gutenberg or Thomas Edison, ethical and
philosophical lessons from Plato or George Bernard Shaw, or human
behavioral lessons from Charles Dickens or Sigmund Freud, you will
simply have a larger toolbox from which to evolve and implement your
vision.
2) It will expose you to opportunities and experiences
that you are likely to not come across if left to your own devices. How
will you know if you might have loved being an art historian, if you
have never been exposed to the discipline of Art History? If you came
from a high school without a computer science department, an
introductory course in CS might set your life on a whole new path. This
extends to every corner of the academic experience: most people do not,
on their own, get exposed to a dozen different fields of interest unless
they were lucky enough to come from a Renaissance family. I found my
lifelong passion in the Book Arts at college, something of which I would
have been completely unaware had I dropped out.
3) It will give you at least a basic grounding in areas that are not necessarily comfortable for you—regardless
of what career you pursue. This will provide you with knowledge and
skills you would typically avoid if you only do things you like. I am a
business/ marketing/ financial person rather than a techie, but the
basic understanding of technology and computer systems that I learned
from my undergraduate computer science courses has stood me in very good
stead for decades, and informed all of my entrepreneurial activities.
Similarly, for someone who lives to code, learning about other
disciplines such as marketing, finance and, yes, even philosophy and
ethics, will likely make you a better coder, and definitely make you a
more valuable team member and entrepreneur. This basic knowledge, like
written and mathematical literacy, will give you at least a foundational
background when interacting with people from other disciplines.
4) You will learn the ability to communicate effectively
to an extent that is much more difficult outside the academic
environment. Unless you are one of those rare people blessed with the
natural talents of a William Shakespeare or Frank McCourt, your studies
in college will give you the tools to persuasively share your ideas and
visions with all of those whose support you will need in life:
employees, customers, investors, partners, team members, lovers,
children. As Francis Bacon wrote, "Reading maketh a full man, conference
a ready man, and writing an exact man". For better or worse, the only
time that a large majority of people will have the [enforced] discipline
to spend time reading great works, writing lengthy papers with critical
feedback, and taking concentrated classes in speech, debate and
theater...is in college.
5) You will meet a broad array of diverse people,
much broader than you are likely to get involved with in any specific
job or industry. College admissions offices spend most of their time
assembling a diverse class, you will find yourself, willingly or not, in
a stew of people with different personalities, interests, religions,
sexual and political orientations. No matter how eclectic your
upbringing, this is likely to broaden your perspective, enhance your
tolerance and improve your ability to work and play well with others.
6) College is a four-year commitment,
which is just about the same time commitment you would be expected to
put into a startup. If you show by your actions that you don't have the
self-discipline to finish what you started, and are unable to defer the
instant gratification of working on your new business until you
graduate, that signals to me that you may well do the same thing if I
fund you in a startup...and the last thing I want is for you to run off
to the next shiny opportunity without finishing the startup in which
I've invested my hard-earned cash.
7) College is a one-time investment in enhancing the entire rest of your career
and it is highly unlikely that, despite your best intentions, you will
ever return to finish a degree after you've dropped out. But once you've
had the experience and earned the degree, you have something that will
stand you in good stead for the rest of your life. In contrast, the fact
is that (a) if you are truly an entrepreneur, you will have virtually
infinite opportunities to start or be involved with new businesses
throughout your life, and since (b) the vast majority of startups fail,
the odds are extremely high that you will be trading a lifetime
foundation for a short term, fleeting experience...and always regret
"the road not taken".
8) The credential has inherent value,
and decrying or denying this fact is not being realistic. In life and
in business, there are some things that—for better or worse—simply require
a college degree as a pre-requisite. Why on earth would you want to
forever set a hurdle in your own path, and block yourself off from
opportunities, by being so short-sighted at this early stage of the
game?
9) Putting this investment into perspective, and taking the long view of your life, is a sign of maturity.
Going for the quick hit of dropping out because you are not willing to
put into your academic career the amount of work it takes to 'do it
right' is a sign of immaturity. And experience has shown me that
investing in immature entrepreneurs is often a recipe for failure. (If
you take issue with the statement "not willing to put in the work".and tell me that you have done all of this, and more, during your
college years. I sure as heck didn't, but I remain in awe of those who
did.)
10) If you have discussed this with your
parents, school advisors, or other mentors, the odds are very high that
they strongly suggested you stay in school and finish your degree. If
that is indeed the case, the fact that you are rejecting reasoned advice
from mature, experienced people who know, trust and support you, would
give me pause to consider whether you will turn out to be the kind of person who simply won't listen to advice from me either...and the fact is that I consider my advice to be an even bigger investment in you than the cash I bring to the table.
There
are many other reasons why I believe so strongly in the value of
completing a college education, but these should give you a start in
understanding why I have made the decision to simply not invest in
dropouts.
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