Re: What You'll Wish You'd Known

montaa — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:52:09 -0000

For those of you that still have some time left in high school: http://socialsciences.uchic...

I post this for two reasons: I used the books in high school and enjoyed them. The second reason is that my father was involved with the initial creation of these books.

My dad was a high school math teacher for 35 years with a math undergraduate degree and 2 master’s degrees in a couple forms of geometry. He wasn’t the most exciting teacher I ever had (4 times: 2x math, 1x computer science, 1x architecture) but he was truly passionate about his students. He spent several weeks in Chicago working with the committee that produced these Math textbooks.

They are not cheap, but they were easy to grasp with or without help. If you want some seriously difficult work with some build up to it, check out these books. Previous editions can be found for pennies at places like Amazon.com.

Re: News from the Front

montaa — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 15:34:25 -0000

I think this is a bit of a logical deviation from some of Paul's other articles, specifically the one about Startup Hubs. Part of the point of that article was to show that the hubs have lots of useful people for those that are starting their own businesses.

These useful people include local angels and VCs from the financial side. From the empirical side, the local community is used to dealing with start ups. The lawyers, the consumers and the government employees are all more likely to have knowledge pertaining to start ups and how to help them, even if it is not intentional.

I would argue that colleges offer the same thing to freshmen, whether they are 17 or 31. If a person picks a college that has a reputation for something of profound interest to the student, they are more likely to find people that can guide them in the direction of bright and capable mentors and peers. The remaining student body is also likely to have a higher number of people to engage in debate with over the appropriate subject.

The "It may not matter all that much where you go to college" argument is a distinct possibility, but is not qualified enough for my liking. This statement seems to have a great deal of ambiguity to it. The social stigma attached to certain colleges can be just as important or damming as the going or not going piece.

From Paul's business perspective this article makes a lot of sense. The startups are just as likely to be started by college dropouts, graduates or post doc students as any of the other groups. My guess would be the largest group is college graduates, but I bet they do not make up a majority.

The college they went to may have a great deal of importance to the person themselves. Each individual is shaped by a combination of how they were born and what they experience in life. The colleges and the life lived while at them can make dramatic changes in a person.

The point of this ramble is to point out that Paul's logic in this essay seems to deviate a bit from his primary point about location being useful. The college experience shapes and changes a person dramatically. I think the reason a huge number of them are successful/unsuccessful in business can be attributed to their college years and what they made of them and what the college made them into.

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Re: What You'll Wish You'd Known

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