Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard while undergrads. David Filo, Jerry Yang, Sergey Brin, Larry Page didn't bother to finish grad school at Stanford and dropped out too. On the other hand, we can think of Craig Venter, Andrew Grove, Gordon Moore, Carver Mead... all of whom obtained PhD's.

The usefulness of a degree depends on what field one is working on. In the Software arena, smart kids out of high school can do a lot if college is not holding them back. But try to start a laser / semiconductor / biotech company with high school kids if you dare ;-)

One might not need a degree to be a good software entrepreneur, but there are many other entrepreneurs who don't live in the software world. Sure, HN is focused on software, but it seems to me that it's irresponsible to promote the idea that all that entrepreneurs need is passion and hard-work. Necessary but not sufficient.

I've noticed this too. But I worry about encouraging people to drop out of college. There are probably a lot who don't really blossom till they get there. Especially those who went to bad high schools.

I think people should at least try a couple years of college, if they can, if only so they know what they're missing if they don't finish.

I didn't read the article but I'll be honest... I'm really thankful for my education. I taught myself programming when I was young and I thought I knew everything when I went to college. I was thankfully proved wrong.

College forced me to learn a lot of stuff I wouldn't have bothered to learn before. Stuff I had no idea would become useful and if I ever needed it may not have had an idea to look for it.

I have an interest in programming languages and interpreters--college helped me find and cultivate this interest. I'm working on a startup doing a lot of natural language stuff--college gave me the foundation necessary to teach myself the tools of this field quickly.

The theoretical underpinnings of stuff don't go away. Understanding different string matching algorithms can apply to writing an efficient style checker, not just making an asinine version of strcmp.

Granted this is all oriented towards technical stuff. I suppose if I wanted to be just an entrepreneur I could save money and buy a Subway franchise. I don't think a college education is necessary there either (but I'm sure it doesn't hurt).

I live in a country where software and technology is not really blossoming. The government is trying hard to promote the tech business in the country. But, nothing is really working at all.

I stopped school for three years before I came to the US to further my studies here. In those three years, my plan was to start something that could make me millions. Soon, I realize that this is a dream, I only managed to make decent amount of money through freelancing. But, I can tell you that you hardly can go anywhere if you are working alone. Luckily enough, I did learn some programming in this period.

Then, I decided to come to the US. English is not my first language. I worked my ass out to get decent score for my SAT. And, luckily enough, I got accepted into one of the best CS school in US. Here, I met with my current cofounders with my new startup. And, this is another new process that I have to dedicate myself to learn something new again(Communication skills, new culture, etc.).

I never regretted to further my studies to college. I met new people here. I learned new knowledge(Remember, CS is not all about programming). And, I believe that this year in college actually helped me more than the three years I wasted.

Another reason this happens in my opinion: If you graduate from a good college with a marketable degree, you get sucked right into a cushy job at a large company. If you never got that degree and don't have that job, you're not giving up as much as the guy who's used to the status and money associated with the big company job. The opportunity cost of starting a company is less.

I've certainly never felt my lack of a degree to be a hindrance in any area except maybe fundraising. PG wrote once that he had come to the same conclusion but still had trouble believing it. Most investors never get there at all.

And I'd imagine even among those like Fred, they still find themselves impressed by a team of 4 CS grads from MIT. Thankfully for those of us who college wasn't for, customers are significantly less likely to read your resume.

I graduated high school in 1994. I'd have graduated college in 1998 with a CS degree. Two startups I held key roles in sold in 8-figure deals in that time period. I even got to do some academic research. I guess I'm unhappy I didn't take linear algebra (really!), but I think I'd have had to have been made of stupid to go to college in '94.

I'm 21, working at a startup as an engineer, working on my own small startup, and making a considerable amount of money over everyone I graduated High School with. All without a degree.

However, I feel that I've been quite lucky and am far more the exception than the rule. I'm actually quite jealous of some of my friends who are getting ready to receive their Bachelors in the next year. As different paths as we took, I somehow feel that I'm lagging behind them in terms of achievements. So I'm back in school this semester. Just one class to make some iota of progress towards my B.S. Comp. Sci.

You certainly don't need a college degree to be a successful entrepreneur, but I've often found it quite hard to apply theory to practicality when you don't know the theory in the first place. When all is said and done, I'd like to have the holes in my knowledge filled and kick that much more ass at what I do..

At the first startup I worked for we polled our office of 12 people to see who had graduated from college. I'm pretty sure the answer was just two people, myself and the other middle manager. Everybody doing interesting work, developers, designers, and founders had either skipped or dropped out of college.

Three of those college dropouts went on to found a company that Fred is funding. So his story could easily be about those three people.

There are two things I realized after that poll. First, the conventional path is boring and I needed to jump off.

Second, the amount of work required to be great at something completely trumps the tiny amount of work that you're going to put in during college. Sure, the background knowledge is helpful, but only a little bit compared to everything you're going to have to learn after college.

These days, I encourage kids to learn how to hack early and then go to a good school and network. If nothing else, the contacts are well worth it. It's not easy to get into the game anymore without the contacts and unless you've got deep pocketed parents or kooky friends with ambition (and money) you're just gonna get stuck somewhere less than desirable.

At my first Valley startup job I was the first hire (out of 30) who didn't have a degree. I gather there was a long discussion about it before I was hired.

I missed out on some things, especially getting to know good hackers, and I've probably been paid less over the years. But it hasn't hurt me much. I am under 30 and I have almost 20 years of work experience.

My LinkedIn profile is permanently set to 85% complete because I can't add a college education.

And I'm 100% happy with my decision to drop out of college after 3 months.

College is a check box, not a select all button.

I'm 22, soon finished up with first year in Business School and constantly fighting with myself if I have the patience to graduate. I have worked in the web industry since I was 16, done freelancing for couple of years, involved with few startups and currently a co-founder.

I know that I don't necessarily need the degree. For the most part it seems useless. I'm quite sure I could find a job, my financials are not that bad, I could even start a startup, but still feel that I'm not somewhat "ready" or have lucrative options enough to dropout.

My current solution is just to read for the exams and skip most, if not all the classes and work on other things. Good thing is that college education here is basically free, so I'm only loosing some time. But still, most of the time, I dislike everything with institutional education.

I just feel like sharing:

I am currently a High School senior. I'm three for three as far as colllege acceptances go which makes me feel incredible but I am still unsure where I will be going or how I will pay.

One side of me wants to start a business as soon as possible. Devote my time to fostering the network of websites I own and expanding my web design services to clients. There is plenty of other stuff I do as well, but I don't know if that's a realistic way to go on. I recognize that college will provide structure when I need it and I hope that it will get me to focus.

I wonder what college did for successful entrepreneurs. Rather how to take the most of college as an entrepreneur.

I've noticed a trend tho. The dropouts that became successful were dropouts from Ivy League schools. Does that mean people from second tire schools should stay in school and finish their degree?

Of course, every system of education does not encourage characteristics of good enterpreneurs - independence and thinking differently. They are crerated to produce good workers - those people who will work for enterpreneurs. And I don't think this atricle encourages people to drop out of college - those who have bravity to do this will do it anyway, and others will finish grad school.

I just saw Johnny Cupcakes speak at UCSB last night. He's also a college drop out. While there are plenty of college drop out entrepreneurs that are very successful (e.g. Bill Gates), there are also a lot of successful entrepreneurs that are college graduates. An MBA is more debatable.

Why does this topic keep coming up?

The same comments, the same threads, the same post-hoc justification (from all sides), the same faulty logical extrapolation, the refutation of aforementioned, etc., etc., etc.

"Anti"-college people: Hi! You do not need an article on a blog - even a great blog from an expert - to justify your life decisions.

"Pro"-college people: Hi! You do not need to act uncomfortable because you did go to college. What an idea. Where's the defensiveness coming from?

"Try inventing anti-cancer shark-mounted LASERS without college degrees!" / "You sure wouldn't hire a BRAIN SURGEON without a degree!" people: One of these things is not like the other. The kids who bypass university thinking they will strike it rich with a social network for iguanas would not go on to invent anti-gravity boots -- or torts -- if only they'd tough it out thru 4 years in a state school.

Who'd I miss?

Remember, folks, historically speaking, many of the world's greatest minds had no university education in their fields. And a lot of them did, too.

Who the fuck cares?

EDIT: PS: I dropped out of high school at 14. Take that!

Yeah, well, you don't need a college degree to drink a bunch of booze, have sex with lots of chicks, and do lots of interesting drugs and hang around with interesting people, but it's how most people go about doing those things when they're 18-22 years old.