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A comment on Max Levchin: "The last time I got kids to drop out of college, they all bought houses for cash.".

Re:Max Levchin: "The last time I got kids to drop out of col... by tx on Thursday June 28, 2007 @06:06PM (#31485)
I've worked with famous people who wanted to "do it again". The reality is that most of them refuse to admit that luck played some role in their last (successful) venture. This made them very annoying to work with in practice.

Do not forget, however, that "luck is when opportunity meets preparation", but I find it amusing that most tech celebs cincerely do not believe that they got a bit lucky in the first place and seem to think very highly of themselves. And asking kids to drop out of college because "they might buy a house for cash" proves (IMO) that Max is probably falls into this category.

This is why it is very rare to see them "do it again". Seriously, how many can you name? Besides Jobs.

My point is that statistically most super-successful companies (PayPal, Google, Microsoft, EBay, YouTube, +hundreds more) were started by smart and lucky amateurs, this makes it less likely (statistically) for potential college dropouts to buy house for cash if they go with Max.

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Re:Max Levchin: "The last time I got kids to drop out of col... by nostrademons on Thursday June 28, 2007 @08:33PM (#31502)
"Seriously, how many can you name?"

Mark Fletcher (eGroups, BlogLines). Joe Kraus (Excite, Jotspot). Ray Ozzie (Visicalc, Lotus Notes, Groove). Evan Williams (Blogger, Twitter). Reid Hoffman (Paypal, LinkedIn). Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore (Fairchild Semiconductor, Intel). Eugene Kleiner (Fairchild Semiconductor, Kleiner Perkins). William Durant (GM and Chevrolet). Henry Wells and William Fargo (American Express and Wells Fargo).

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Re:Max Levchin: "The last time I got kids to drop out of col... by byrneseyeview on Friday June 29, 2007 @02:45PM (#31643)
"My point is that statistically most super-successful companies (PayPal, Google, Microsoft, EBay, YouTube, +hundreds more) were started by smart and lucky amateurs, this makes it less likely (statistically) for potential college dropouts to buy house for cash if they go with Max."

You realize that Youtube was founded by former Paypal employees, right?

[ Parent | on HN ]