
Why Companies Founded By College Dropouts Rarely Hire College Dropouts - shard
https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130911173545-8451-why-education-is-a-must-they-promised-flying-cars-instead-we-got-caffeine-spray?_mSplash=1
======
tokenadult
Do we even know that this is a true statement about the facts of the world? Or
is this something that the author just makes up, based on anecdotes he knows?
(We have already had this same article submitted here before,

[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6368032](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6368032)

from another online source, by the way.) There are no reliable statistics here
about how various companies hire, and indeed no reliable classification of
companies into those founded by college dropouts (what if a company has more
than one founder?) and those that are not.

If we are just slinging personal opinions around here, and that is the most
the author of the article kindly submitted here is doing, then let me express
the opinion that RESEARCH about what hiring procedures work best for companies
might be a good thing for companies to look at. The research does not show
that requiring degrees for jobs does much to guarantee hiring better workers.
I have summarized the research in a well liked Hacker News comment

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5227923](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5227923)

that I am currently updating for posting on my personal website.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: If you are hiring for any kind of job in the United States,
prefer a work-sample test as your hiring procedure. If you are hiring in most
other parts of the world, use a work-sample test in combination with a general
mental ability test.

(Links and citations to sources available at the earlier HN posting linked
above.)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
My startup was acquired by Dell. Without a college degree you couldn't get
promoted. That was a decade ago though.

~~~
smtddr
Same thing at at&t. Glass ceilings for those without degrees; at least in
2001.

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nickpinkston
Haha, because people who are good at obeying school are good at obeying you
;-)

Seriously though, is this really that surprising? Getting shit done includes
bring able to finish what you start, I'd hire anyone with the portfolio proof
of execution, and a degree can be evidence of this.

~~~
criley2
School teaches a valuable skill: can you sit your ass down consistently, day
after day, week after week, year after year and become proficient in subject
matters you don't find remotely interesting at first?

People who are too inconsistent to attend class, or too undisciplined to learn
a subject they dislike will probably suffer in many jobs, as if everyone did a
job they loved, most work would never get done.

~~~
guard-of-terra
"can you sit your ass down consistently, day after day, week after week, year
after year and become proficient in subject matters you don't find remotely
interesting at first"

No.

May I now return to programming which I love?

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tjic
The author of the article calls entrepreneurs who haven't graduated from
college "children".

No, seriously.

 _plonk_ , as we used to say on Usenet.

~~~
bdcravens
Perhaps "children" is a bit derisive, but I'd argue that someone who hasn't
really accomplished anything outside of the protective cocoon of their
parents' home(s) and income is less than an adult.

~~~
nknighthb
My mother lives in my house and survives partially off of my income. I was
making more by the time I was 21 than either of my parents ever had. I'm less
than an adult because I don't have a degree? What the hell is wrong with you?

~~~
asdfologist
Did you even read what he said? There's no overlap between your scenario and
"someone who hasn't really accomplished anything outside of the protective
cocoon of their parents' home(s) and income".

~~~
nknighthb
Did you even read the thread? He's either equating "hasn't really accomplished
anything" with not having a degree, or he's utterly off-topic.

And if someone actually does have wealthy parents who would always help if
needed, does that mean they'll always be "less than adults"?

Every possible way of reading the comment is so patronizing and elitist I
can't believe you would seek to defend it.

~~~
asdfologist
Read the comment again. bdcravens never implied he agrees with the article.
He's using "less than adults" to describe the set of people who haven't
accomplished anything. This set and the set of people without college degrees
may have substantial overlap, but you don't belong to the overlap by
definition.

~~~
nknighthb
I've read it many times. The most generous possible interpretation I can
ascribe is that he's completely off-topic in his response to the parent
comment and considers anyone with wealthy parents to be less than adult. The
more likely interpretation in-context is that he thinks anyone who hasn't gone
through college is less than an adult. You're not going to convince me
otherwise by repeating the same argument with different words.

~~~
bdcravens
I'm a bit biased towards those with wealthy parents perhaps. My point, which I
may have failed to make, is that business success requires personal success,
and if you haven't experienced that on your own (where true failure is a very
real possibility), then I doubt you're ready. That growth can come in a
variety of ways: college success, raising a child as a single parent, or even
dropping out of high school to work and make ends meet. That growth can occur
in the presence of wealth, but I think it can be tough, and proceeding through
the rigors of college may be the easiest path (but not only path, and no
guarantee of growth even then)

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xfax
Because hiring is hard (and a time suck) and a degree from a good college
happens to be a pretty good filter for whatever attribute makes a decent
employee?

~~~
plorkyeran
It's certainly _a_ filter, but is there any real evidence it's a good filter?
I would guess that is, but I really don't have much to back that guess up
with.

~~~
001sky
Its cheap/cost effective is I guess why its used. Its also a demonstrable CYA.
People are incredulous that a person can FUBAR shit with an degree from XYZ.

~~~
auctiontheory
Exactly. The "no one ever got fired for buying IBM" principle.

------
JamesArgo
We need to separate instruction from assessment, allowing an ecology of
assessment companies to filter potential employees through whatever gauntlet
they chose. So many start-ups are focused on instruction. What we need is
evidence-based, independent and affordable assessment.

------
RKoutnik
It's odd that this article (in it's various incarnations) manages to miss one
of the more successful Theil startups: Zaption [0]. (Disclaimer: I work for
Charlie). We've just launched, have had great success with funding, and are
already on our way to profitability. As a bonus, we're helping teachers with
tools to better reach kids, instead of the "simplistic SV startups" the author
moans about.

[0] [http://zaption.com](http://zaption.com)

------
austenallred
I say this with some trepidation, but I wouldn't hire myself. Every company
I've ever worked for has wanted me to perform some specific task really well,
and I have ended up working with the CEO to change things around, been offered
an equity position, or have been fired.

It's not that I'm against doing the work that I'm hired for, I just really
suck at it. I try to shake things up - for better or for worse. The one time
it was at a big company with 150+ employees that was definitely "for worse" \-
I didn't realize how strong politics and hierarchy could be and was fired
pretty quickly for not doing my job and trying to do someone else's.

~~~
MartinCron
There are places out there that need exactly what you have to bring. You'll
find one eventually.

------
untilHellbanned
Searching this thread, nobody is mentioning the total beatdown of Peter Thiel.

Say what you will about the importance of college but the growing evidence on
the Thiel Fellowship doesn't seem promising.

~~~
bdcravens
This is one of those topics where the topic of college being required creates
such emotional noise that they completely miss the point. As I said in another
comment, you can't manufacture success. All Thiel is doing is cargo-culting
around dropping out of college.

~~~
untilHellbanned
yeah, hits too close to home for the hacker news demographic,

------
bdcravens
The great example of Jobs and Gates are poor examples to follow. Gates only
dropped out once he was getting some traction on this business ventures. Jobs
dropped in on creative classes even after he left college, and he credited
these classes with much of what made it into the Mac years later. He also made
many of his business contacts and early business while he was an employee at
Atari. Neither one quit college and started a business with no business plan
or income.

------
ritchiea
The problem with comparing the Thiel Fellowship recipients with Zuckerberg or
even with YC & TechStars startups is that the fellows are selected for being
talented and having ambitious ideas, whereas the startups that make it into
accelerators tend to already have a product (I know at one point this was not
necessarily the case, but today first time entrepreneurs need to have a
product to get funded and/or make it into an accelerator not just an idea).

------
auctiontheory
The verdict on the Thiel Fellows will be written in fifty years; it does not
hinge on the success or failure of their first venture.

Even if they return to finish their Bachelors, there's a strong case that
Thiel Fellows will get much more out of college with the entrepreneurial
experience under their belt. I certainly would have.

------
bdcravens
Bigger issue isn't college vs. no college. It's the fallacy that you can
artificially generate success via specialized incubator. Everyone loves to
point to Jobs and Gates-like examples. Had Steve Jobs been in a Thiel-like
program, would he have created Apple, or caffeine spray?

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nulagrithom
I thought this article would actually be about the reason why companies
founded by college dropouts don't hire other college dropouts. Seems "Why
Thiel's idea sucked" would be a better title.

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mtct
Ok, in the hall of fame everyone have a college degree. But for the millions
of anonymous workers, college is really convenient?

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star0zero
"And if they do become entrepreneurs, the companies they start will be far
less successful than those started by degree holders." \- suggests a zero-sum
scenario which, by my anecdote back of the napkin assessment (which is all
that seems to be required to be of merit), is ridiculous, pure and simple.

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BWStearns
This is a repost of another article that was here yesterday or the day before,
just on LinkedIn instead of a blog and with a new title.

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roflzx
>read first sentence >two errors >close

~~~
jpwright
You might be interested in knowing that your comment consists only of sentence
fragments, and that you are on Hacker News and not 4chan.

------
capkutay
They don't hire dropouts because they can't afford any more useless people on
their staff other than themselves.

