I’d argue how your business is running is 10x as important as credentials.

(I dropped out of a non-prestigious school and had work experience at one company, have raised $120m+ in <4 yrs).

So they care a lot, but it’s not everything to them?

In other words, you had connections? I'm guessing you weren't a poor single mother who dropped out of school to raise her kid.

How do you drop out, have 1 job experience and raise $120m? Either you are extremely privilege and/or extraordinarily lucky.

Stop making it sound so easy like everyone can do what you did. Most people, who didn't even drop out, wouldn't know where to start.

> My experience: everything I own in one suitcase, here’s my sleeping situation. Would shower at YMCA and work at coworking space. $300/mo personal burn. If you could combine the two you’d fill it 100% and make SF possible again.

https://twitter.com/Austen/status/1093540469022195712

> Lambda School wouldn't exist without Gumroad.

> We bootstrapped for the first several months without salaries from the proceeds of the book I sold there. Gave us enough runway to try the crazy “pay back when you’re hired” things. Thanks Sahil!

Wanna try again?

No need. Everything you linked is self proclaimed tweets. By someone obviously very good at selling himself.

I'm sure I can link to Zuckerburg tweeting about how concerned he is about privacy issues. Does that make it so?

I've actually lived like the guy claimed and even worse. You certainly don't have time and energy to write a book. Certainly don't take pics. Seems more like the guy was hipster "slumming" for cred rather than someone truly struggling.

So a classic dropout bum who magically sells a book to start a startup? Like I said, " Either [he is] extremely privilege and/or extraordinarily lucky."

Do you want to try again?

If his story is true, he is extremely privileged and/or extraordinarily lucky. How about this, if every college student dropped out and lived like a bum, what percentage of them would be able to raise $120 million?

Also, lambdaschool isn't a new idea. The idea of tech training school has been around at least since the 90s.

Yep, and the apprenticeship model even longer (which I'd argue is a category lambdaschool falls under)

You drop out, start a company because nobody wants you, get some seeds funding with sheer luck, grow the business progressively, hire some more people, grow some more and eventually raise 2 more rounds reaching 120M. That takes many many years.

It's a massive combination of luck and being at the right place at the right time selling an okay thing. Then persevering over numerous years and executing decently. Most people won't get there not because they are incapable but because they don't have the environment and the bit of luck.

Yes that, as well as: having a secure attachment to primary caregivers (Bowlyby & Ainsworth) and live in relative security, have encouragement and patience early on from parents or other guides to help you manage complexity and 'learn how to learn' autodidactically from a very early age. The people who do well in school inherited a calm nervous system.

Honestly I think 99.999% of what people attribute to 'hard work, or call 'success', purely has to do with the state of the nervous system of the individual. Unlucky? You'll face systemic disadvantagement.

(However, we did what we needed to do--get some Stanford people with ties to Sand Hill Road--and got it done.)

A growth chart very much who not get you funded anywhere. Numbers that would have people writing cheques in Silicon Valley or even Boston would be lucky to get a loan, personally guaranteed from the founder, for a quarter of that amount in most of Europe. People raise in the Bakery w because it’s the best place to raise. This indie hacker, growth fund, Earnest Capital, lifestyle business to selling to PE funnel thing is distributing that and building a smoother thing between VC and small business but you cannot raise anywhere else like the Valley, except perhaps China. Even the Israelis go to the US to raise.

Valuations in Japan are below a fifth of similarly situated YC companies, where funding is available, and there are founder/business profiles trivially fundable in the Valley which would never raise a yen here.

Source: I have watched angel rounds and series A in both Silicon Valley as well as in the East Coast and India. I'm in my fourth decade now and on my 8th startup. Silicon Valley has some angels that are pretty generous about modest traction if they like the team. I haven't found such people in NYC and in India (though they may exist).

But, on the other hand, can learn that as quickly as anyone else.

>You have a much higher chance of rasing money for the same idea if you worked in FAANG than if you worked in Accenture.

You may be right, but do you have any evidence of this, anecdotal or otherwise?

  > You may be right, but do you have any evidence of
  > this, anecdotal or otherwise?

Sure. It's true that your background matters in general. What's not clear, and does put the burden of proof on OP, that the specific background of FAANG experience matters.

>and instead you should provide evidence this isn't the case within the YC/VC system?

As a general rule, it's not easy to prove a negative. What kind of evidence would you expect for YC/VC system that would answer this for you??

  > What kind of evidence would you expect for YC/VC system
  > that would answer this for you??