

Ask HN:  Does your CS/math education hurt your entrepreneurial endeavors? - amichail

I would claim that such an education can hurt you in at least three ways all of which revolve around a disconnect with typical users.<p>(1) Building something people want: A cs/math education values cleverness, difficulty, and novelty.  Average users care about other sorts of things (e.g., utility, fun).<p>(2) Marketing: A CS/math education enhances your vocabulary with technical terms.  After a while, you feel that these terms are just everyday language.  This could result in a disaster when trying to market your product.<p>(3) Overestimating intelligence:  Fellow university students tend to be brighter than your average users.<p>Do you agree?
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10ren
I see this as the technical/business disconnect.

I've definitely had it at times, when I value perfection in itself. Working
with (discrete maths/CS) proofs has exacerbated this. If one aspect isn't
quite right, it's a horrible catastrophe, and destroys the whole. This non-
pragmatic approach also causes problems in just getting things done.

Behind it is a fundamental question of values, of whether you're working to
serve people (an entrepreneur's job), or working to serve truth (a scientist's
or artist's job). That's up to you.

One way to combine these perspectives is in terms of a "Hero's Journey": you
encounter a problem of ordinary folk (Quest); you journey into a strange
special world of deeper power to obtain the solution (Elixir), and then return
to the ordinary world to solve it (you can't solve a problem at the same level
you encountered it.) It seems that this so-called "monomyth" is so universally
resonate because it reflects a common experience of human beings.

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lallysingh
Nope. There's definitely a hump to cross over, however: for a while you move
away from "normal people" into a hypertechnologist, but eventually you
understand both real life and technology well enough to mate them together
effectively.

Then all you have is a great ability to use advanced CS/math techniques to
satisfy your customers.

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sdesol
My answer to your assertions is yes and no. Majoring in Math/Computer Science
will definitely be an asset if you want to create the next Matlab or
Mathematica. However, if your goal is write the ultimate "For Dummies" book,
your technical background will probably work against you if you are unable to
dumb yourself down, so to speak.

Having majored in both Mathematics and Computer Science, I can honestly say it
has been invaluable for my career and I my current entrepreneur endeavors.

The most important thing that you'll have to learn is, if you want to be
successful, you'll have understand those around you. Having a Math/CS
education is not the issue. Not having the personal skills to recognize
deficiencies in yourself and others is what is going to hurt you.

