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.

(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).

(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.

(3) Overestimating intelligence: Fellow university students tend to be brighter than your average users.

Do you agree?

[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.

[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.

[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.