In a huge 3rd world country, a degree is obviously useful. It's a gov-issued certification, a way to transfer trust from the person having the degree to the government. You don't need to trust the guy because the government says he can code. If you don't see why that's useful probably you never had 10000 applications sent to you.

The problem with degree inflation is the same as any other kind of inflation, it lowers (devaluates?) the value of the degree.

A good point, the argument for a college degree becomes quite a lot more compelling then as starting a company is almost right out...

This does not take away anything from the author, his entrepreneurship and his overall success, mind you. However, the points made by ~kamaal and everyone else in this thread are extremely valid. They represent the part of India that is not so 'shining'.

I myself fall in the same category as the author. I chose to drop out of my Masters in Physics (with an elective in Astrophysics) and went to work as a Radio Show host for a commercial radio station. It was made possible only because of an invisible fallback option that my parents provided. Without it, I would probably be working away at a 9 to 5 job writing uninspired code for some company rather than sitting at home trying my hand at programming with Python.

Wait.

Oh, shit.

Source: Anecdotes and reading lots of news articles.

The traditional education system WAS the easiest way to get a job. Nowadays, it is the easiest way NOT to get a job.

Step 1: Download the 10 books x 4 (years) = 40 books of the average university degree. Step 2: Unless it's mathematics, it is just literature. Read it. Step 3: Sit the 10 x 4 exams at an online college.

In most developed countries, you have just managed NOT to spend 100 000 USD and NOT to waste 4 years of your life. All of this sounds useless, and it probably is equally useless, but at least it is not as time-consuming nor as expensive as the traditional alternative.

Let me ask every one a simple question. If you believe you didn't learn much at college. Now that you are out of college why haven't you turned into a knowledge bank? If you ponder at that question long enough you will eventually realize there is nothing really wrong with college anyway.

Coming to your original point, unfortunately degrees matter in our society. Like you I believe that we must do away with that system and look at learning and the ability to perform instead.

Here in India, you can't even get a job interview if you don't have a degree. So we are stuck in this degree system, and probably will be decades to come.

In most developed countries, college is much cheaper than that (to the student). I paid $1400/year to attend a respected university.

Debts? Does India not have limited-liability corporations? In rational countries, when your business idea fails, you just throw away the company and start another.

But businesses are still stuck in the concept of loans. Its like you take a loan to buy your home(Or if I'm right its called mortgage in the US). Businesses pretty much run on loans. So things get super risky, when you factor in failure. Because lenders are expecting principle amount + interests in returns, and you have to often give some thing as a guarantee(for eg: a house, or a plot) which remains with the lender till you return the amount.

I think the trends are changing now. I heard a senior VC talk at a start up conference here in Bangalore. One of the main reasons why entrepreneurship never took off in India was because people had to deal with what-after-failure scenarios, and then it ends there. If the venture is too risky there is hardly any point trying.

The situation is no way close to that in the US. In fact even to get anything close to an angel investment you need at least an IIT or an IIM degree. Ask this to anyone trying to bootstrap. Alumni connections are very important, if not that you at least need to be some how networked to a VC. I've had personal experiences with all these.

The best bet for any Indian entrepreneur is either raising money from family(If they are rich enough to fund you) or really bootstrap it as a side project and grow it out.

Either way being an entrepreneur is not for the faint hearted in India. If you are bootstrapping in your side, you will likely work 19 hrs a day and face failure after failure with nearly everyone around finding reasons to make you and your decisions look stupid. At the same time you see guys not even 1/100th the worth climbing the corporate ladder and taking obscene salaries back home just because they happen to be good politicians.

It just all boils down to one word, Persistence. Keep trying. Its not about winning or losing, you just have to show up every day and put up a fight. Eventually you will make it.

Great point. This is actually not constrained to India but propagate through most of Asia, including the generally rich Singapore. Seems like a favorite "past-time" to watch people fail. It's a society that lives by the saying "the nail that sticks out gets hammered down".

Which is why Silicon Valley is such an attractive place to pursue a startup. The support system is there and there are little social stigma attached to failure.

Failing after putting in all the long hours and weekends is not something that is easy to stomach alone. Failing and having everyone around you rub it in is brutal.