Re:Paul Graham: News from the Front
by michael_nielsen on Wednesday September 05, 2007 @12:15PM
(#50512)
How was the data analysed?
The most obvious way, and the way the essay seems to imply, is simply to look for correlations between success / failure and which school the founders attended.
If this is how it was done, then the conclusion is flawed. All it shows is that the school doesn't matter, conditional on being accepted by YC (rather than rejected). This is a completely different conclusion than the one the essay reaches, namely that the school doesn't matter, period.
The most obvious way, and the way the essay seems to imply, is simply to look for correlations between success / failure and which school the founders attended.
If this is how it was done, then the conclusion is flawed. All it shows is that the school doesn't matter, conditional on being accepted by YC (rather than rejected). This is a completely different conclusion than the one the essay reaches, namely that the school doesn't matter, period.