Stolen from Alexa Smith: The Myth of the Successful College Dropout

11 years ago

I will hold up gates, dell, jobs, wozniak, etc... And say the idea of a dropout never succeeding is a myth, but I have NEVER said that dropping out of college is good for all or a way to get rich. Such inverse thinking is a problem that will occur ANYWAY! They ALSO will potentially see any pattern as a CAUSE! So many tenements don't have whites, and they figure all whites are rich.

Wozniak's secret to success was a STRONG interest in electronics, good aptitude, and a passion.

Jobs secret was some charisma, and persistence! He also knew the right people.

Gates secret was an interest in computers, persistence, and knowing the right people.

Dells secret was charisma, aptitude, and the timing was right, etc... As I recall, he started with SPEAKERS!!!!! NOT computers!

In ALL cases if the timing were off by like 5 years in EITHER direction, we likely would never have heard of them. Wozniak might have done what others in his group did. They were rich, but generally NOT household names. Gates and Jobs would likely have been sales people or run a smaller company. MAYBE Gates might have had a smaller computer company. Another person, named Kaplan(NOT the test guy) started out like DELL. He created a company that was only PERIPHERALLY dealing with computers. He was a moderate success, ended up going bankrupt due to some bank problem, and restarted his company only a few years ago. He was never a household name. But he started EXACTLY as dell had!

Steve

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Alexa Smith

Banned 11 years ago

Originally Posted by seasoned

In ALL cases if the timing were off by like 5 years in EITHER direction, we likely would never have heard of them.

This is absolutely right.

In his book "Outliers: The Story of Success", Malcolm Gladwell has written extensively about this, regarding Gates and others. One of the many interesting points he makes is that in all the cases he discusses, if the timing were even slightly off (in some cases, even by as little as one or two years!) we would probably never have heard of any of these people at all.

People are sometimes quick to point out that Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are not college graduates. What they're sometimes less quick to mention is that they were both people with impeccable academic credentials who had no trouble getting into Harvard in the first place, and they both attribute their own success, in large part, to that fact and partly to being lucky enough to have been in the right place at the right time.

People who complete their college education are (for many reasons, some obvious and some very far from obvious) overwhelmingly more likely to be successful. This has been reliably proven, over and over again, for over 100 years now, in the countries in which statistical records are kept (and that's a lot of countries). It's simply incontrovertible fact.

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seasoned

11 years ago

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

This is absolutely right.

In his book "Outliers: The Story of Success", Malcolm Gladwell has written extensively about this, regarding Gates and others. One of the many interesting points he makes is that in all the cases he discusses, if the timing were even slightly off (in some cases, even by as little as one or two years!) we would probably never have heard of any of these people at all.

People are sometimes quick to point out that Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are not college graduates. What they're sometimes less quick to mention is that they were both people with impeccable academic credentials who had no trouble getting into Harvard in the first place, and they both attribute their own success, in large part, to that fact and partly to being lucky enough to have been in the right place at the right time.

People who complete their college education are (for many reasons, some obvious and some very far from obvious) overwhelmingly more likely to be successful. This has been reliably proven, over and over again, for over 100 years now, in the countries in which statistical records are kept (and that's a lot of countries). It's simply incontrovertible fact.

Well, when I said 5 years, I didn't actually pull that out of my hat.

Apple was NOT the first computer company! NOPE! NOT EVEN CLOSE! They were the first that came out with a computer and lasted the longest. TECHNICALLY, they died a few years back. They suffered the SAME EXACT death as SUN!

Let's take M/S and Apple together. JOBS rode on wozniaks coat tails, etc.... The Microcomputer was effectively born in 1971. The first intel processor to really take off was 1974. The family Apple traditionally ties to was born 1974, and the first processor they used was created 1975! BTW the processor IBM used was created in 1979, and the IBM PC was released in 1981.

So when do you think M/S and Apple were started as corporations? 1975!!!!!!! Could they have started in 1980? NO WAY! CP/M basically beat them to the punch. Within that extra 5 years, it would have been ensconced.

CP/M was the first real Hobbyist O/S. One day, a company copied it, and eventually a person by the name of Bill Gates sold the copy to IBM! By the 1980s, commodore made a nice system. I REALLY wanted to buy one! ALAS, the company was headed for the dustbin. If they had that computer a few years earlier, Apple and IBM could have lost the race! IBM doesn't count. They were LAUGHING at the prospect, and just hoped the PC would get back some business they were losing.

Heck, look at DEC! If M/S and INTEL weren't as big, decs ALPHA could have taken off before they went bankrupt.

DELL started with speakers. If computers had taken off only a couple years later, he likely would have completed college and might not have done anything special.

As for zuckerberg? WHO KNOWS? It COULD have been done 5 years earlier. 5 years later, it would have been a LOT harder, because of competition.

Steve

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Patrician

11 years ago

i liked the comment about the fallacy of believing that a degree in humanities would not end up in a job involving french fries! LOL. what a creative way to say '@ mcdonalds'

ironic 'starving artists' have to work in fast-food. lollll

i also don't agree that dropping out makes you automatically a failure or "poor".

(you probably just wouldn't make the same money you would have if you were only half as bright but had 'papers'). either way in your lifetime of earning you are almost definitely better off to earn the degree even if you don't ever get to use it to make money (@ j-o-b) - you will always be considered more valuable as an employee, again even if your field was not applicable to the job you are paid for.

(unless you were a gates, jobs, elvis, etc) (a star)

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Patricia Brucoli
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seasoned

11 years ago

BTW I should clarify my statement about Apples death. One competitor Apple had was called SUN. SUN, like Apple, had a 100% proprietary platform. In fact, SUN was even MORE proprietary, as they even made their own CPUs though, for a time, Apple ALSO did that! Well, SUN decided to get rid of their MAIN business(making computers)! They became a SOFTWARE company, making essentially ONLY the O/S. Apple has done the SAME! Several years ago, like SUN, they got rid of their MAIN business(making computers), and started selling only the O/S. Oh SURE, they BOTH still SELL hardware, but they can't design and dictate like they could. Well, SUN DID eventually end up getting sold. TODAY, ironically, its proprietary CPUs are sold by ORACLE, for their database software!

SPARC Systems | Mission-Critical Computing | Oracle

Oracle tried to become what it is today in 1979. They failed MISERABLY. If they started any earlier it is likely they would have given up. If they started too much later, potential customers could have been lost. Fancy THAT! ELLISON dropped out ALSO!

Steve

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garyv

11 years ago

The one thing also that's missing from most of the reports is that many of these successful college dropouts had their business lined up before dropping out.

However, 100 years of data can no longer be relied upon when the price of a 4 year college tuition has gone up by over 100% in the last 10 years alone. A decent college will add the equivalent of another house payment onto your monthly debt for 20 or more years after you leave college. Plus for nearly 90 out of the last 100 years you could rely upon the United States being an industrial powerhouse - where it was easy to get a "rat-race" type of job that would pay well with a college diploma. Now all of our industry is in china, and we have engineers and master degrees flipping burgers at McDonalds.

I do have a college degree - but I got it after I had already built a business for myself and had enough success to pay for it. But I recently went back to visit the state where I grew up, and the Valedictorian of my highschool, who received a partial scholarship to a state college, was still paying a huge monthly payment on his college debt and was making way less money than I was. - I honestly think that the landscape is changing. Old data can not be used for what is going on today.

The most successful people are those that figure out that the money is not in chasing after the cheese, but in making others chase it for you. A lot of times those that figure that out will have a college degree - but it is definitely not a prerequisite.

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Fazal Mayar

11 years ago

Alexa is right, stay in school kids! Living costs get bigger and without a college degree, you would be somewhat in a trouble

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Stolen from Alexa Smith: The Myth of the Successful College Dropout

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