A brief spoken reflection from Precursor Ventures on students leaving university to start companies. The speaker notes famous outliers (e.g., Zuckerberg) but emphasizes that most dropouts' startups do not become major companies; many gain valuable experience and often become lifelong entrepreneurs, and some adopt a cynical attitude valuing admission over graduation.
People were dropping out to start companies, and on average, none of those companies mattered. You could say, oh, Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook. Of course, there are examples of, like, where this worked out. On average, most of the people I know, the thing they dropped out of school to do, did not turn out to be Yahoo, Facebook, Google. That doesn't mean it wasn't a great experience for them to raise money and try out. Most of many of those people have become life, lifelong entrepreneurs as a result. And I think I feel really awkward saying this, but I'll say it anyway. I think some of these people, these, these entrepreneur students are also being, like, ruthlessly cynical. And they're like, listen, it's not as important that I graduate from Stanford as it is that I got in in the first place.
