How bad does it look to startups to drop out of grad school?

[principia1]

I started Physics grad school this Fall, but I have recently started considering dropping out, either to join an existing company or to start my own business. I am concerned about how this would look to future employers, both startups and non-startups. I know that getting an MS degree but no phD in Physics does not look great, as it shows that you quit the PhD program. But is getting an MS still better than nothing?

Also, will the companies (both startup and non-startup) take my grad school grades seriously? I'm a grad course thats considered to be one of the hardest Physics courses right now, and I just don't have the motivation to study hard for the class, and I'm concerned about getting a really bad grade (possibly FAILING).

I've been working on a programming project recently, as a way to improve my programming skills, and its actually been kind of fun. But I haven't programmed enough to say that I'm committed to making a career in programming

[kstenerud]

The biggest thing employers look for is: Can you get shit done? Do you finish what you start? Do you have the staying power to see a project through? Do you care enough to make sure your shit is high quality, rather than barely passable?

Quitting school just because it's hard, and not caring about succeeding in your ventures does not send a positive signal to potential employers (especially start-ups, which are made up of people who endure incredible stress and hardship and do all sorts of things they don't like to in order to succeed because that's what it takes).

[jsavimbi]

> I have recently started considering dropping out

Don't. If you're looking to work as a physicist at a biomed or similar startup, a PhD probably looks better than an MS, but at a regular tech startup, you'd be surprised to find out that beyond the core employees, most people have average or below average experience/education. On a team of a dozen software engineers that I'm a member of, one has an MS, and it isn't in CS. Either way, if anything, I'd try and combine work and school.

No. I've been working in and out of startups for over a dozen years and I've seen or shown my transcripts since graduation.

I once heard someone say that physicists make for good programmers (@daksis, maybe, but he's also a physicist I think). There are many disciplines within programming, along with multiple business verticals, horizontals and angles by which to sell information. Explore (meetups?) the ones you find a) hard and b) interesting and get a good picture of what you may want to do when you finish school. Now is not the time to pound the pavement without a degree or start-now skills. Much less embark on a startup adventure if you don't have the experience or commitment.

[principia1 → jsavimbi]

"at a regular tech startup, you'd be surprised to find out that beyond the core employees, most people have average or below average experience/education. On a team of a dozen software engineers that I'm a member of, one has an MS, and it isn't in CS"

You mean the technical workers have below average programming skills? I haven't really been applying for jobs at startups because I thought I had to be really good at programming or statistical analysis

[jsavimbi → principia1]

> You mean the technical workers have below average programming skills?

I would say the early stage employees more often than not are not as proficient at their jobs as say someone with a comprable job title at a larger, mature firm. And sometimes that does include the technical employees.

In each particular case, you have to gauge the average age of the founders and employees along with the maturity of the market in order to best define your chances of success at a given startup. A retail-oriented startup that caters to an immature market segment is invariable going to be the most inexperienced while a research-oriented startup that provides deep data analysis to financial or biomed corporations is probably going to debug your ballsack while laughing at your resume. Just find something interesting and challenging in between.