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The "No BS" version of how startups are really built, taught by actual startup Founders who have lived through all of it. Hosts Wil Schroter and Ryan Rutan talk candidly about the intense struggles Founders face both personally and professionally as they try to turn their idea into something that will change the world.
Welcome back to the episode of
the Startup Therapy Podcast.
This is Ryan Rutan,
joined as always by my
friend, the founder,
and CEO of startups.com.
Will Schroeder will we
know founders who've come
from all kinds of different
backgrounds with all sorts
of different resumes before,
during, after they started.
Some have college degrees and
many don't, and, uh, you, you
suggest that today we tee off
like what is the value of a
college degree if your path.
Was already set for
startup dom, right?
You're like, this is
what I want to go and do.
Right?
We're not talking about if
you wanna become an engineer
or a doctor, a lawyer,
you still have to go get
certified to go get a degree.
But if you were planning on just
building stuff, what's the value
of this thing and at the, at the
risk of becoming that uncle, uh,
at Thanksgiving is convincing
you to drop outta college?
We might actually be right.
That scares me and it scares me.
Not because I'm worried about
my opinion on it, it scares
me because we have such an
ingrained culture that said,
college equals good and
anything not college equals bad.
And I think particularly for
founders, particularly for
the people who do what we
do or want to do what we do.
That is bullshit.
Yeah.
Now, this isn't me
knocking college.
I have nothing against
college, right?
No.
Like this is saying, hey, for
what we do specifically being
founders, I'm not convinced
that college is a given.
Right?
No.
In fact, if anything.
I think college for many
people is a step backward.
Let me tee this up.
Recently, last week, a buddy
of mine who's done phenomenally
well, has made over a hundred
million dollars, asks me if
I'll sit down, uh, with his
kid to just graduated high
school, um, to talk about a
new business he wants to start.
And he says to me, he.
He said, Hey, will just
wanna point out that uh, my
son isn't going to college.
Instead, he's gonna
start his company.
Now, of course he's
telling me, Ryan.
Yeah.
Like, and I'm like,
that's music to my ears.
Right.
But the way he said it, and
I think this is important
to open up with, the way he
said, it was almost like,
I don't know if you can say
something pre defensively, like
expecting a different response.
Do you know what I mean?
I'm sure he's gotten
different responses to that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And the one that would clearly
be proffered by you or I,
where it's like, hell yeah.
Right.
I'm sure not everybody
gave him that reaction.
That's where this started.
Okay.
Yeah.
So in,
in the back of my mind when
he said it, I was like,
you know, I kind of wish
I heard this more often.
Again, this isn't a
knock against college.
I'm just saying relative
to what we do as founders,
it is, it wouldn't be
my first recommendation.
So we get to lunch
and we sit down.
His son, since I've known
since he was a little
kid, is wonderful, right?
And he wants to start
his own business.
A legit business, like a
real business that makes
real money, et cetera.
And he's talking about
not going to college.
And back of my mind, I'm
not sure why I immediately
wanted to tell him what
he's gonna be missing.
Yeah, yeah.
By not going to college.
But that's where this
whole thing started.
I started doing the math in
my head and I'm like, I can't
come up with a single reason.
To tell him to go to college.
And then I think of it in
terms of this, Ryan, how
different that is than
what we grew up with.
This is like the first time
where that is like a very
legit argument.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, man.
Well, it comes from
a lot of things.
I think that was like, if I
look at my mom's generation
and really more so my, my
grandmother's generation.
Who were some of the first
to, to really start going to
university, and I'm gonna say
en mass, but lots more people.
Yeah.
Um, but they also, that
generation really, really
worked their tails off to
be able to provide that for
their kids, which is like
my parents' generation.
Right, right.
So they worked super hard and
then, so there was this, there
was this sense of like, this was
hard work, but it would compound
and great things would happen.
And at some point they were
right because they were
still in the vast minority.
By the time everybody
had one became a little
bit less important.
But I think we have this like.
Generational expectation's
been passed and great
grandma worked really hard
to pay for this for grandma.
I'm talking about my kids
now as I'm explaining 'em.
Great.
Grandma worked really hard to
pay for this for grandma, and
then grandma was so appreciative
of that she had this, that she
felt like she had to provide
it for me without even thinking
about whether it mattered.
And now I have to question
whether this has any
value for so little
friend whatsoever or not.
Because at this point,
like with the stats around
this stuff, man, like 20.
5% of people actually work
in their field of study.
So you're essentially paying
for a really, really expensive
networking event, right?
A 200 k plus networking.
It maybe
even not a good one,
right?
Yeah.
Not even a particularly
good one, right?
You and I went to the same
college at Ohio State, right?
This is gonna offend so many
people, particularly people
that went to Ohio State
when I went there around the
time that you went there,
like in the early nineties.
It was the equivalent
of 13th grade.
Like there was nothing
special about it.
I love Ohio State.
This isn't me knocking, but
also I'm not gonna oversell
it just 'cause I happen
to attend college there.
Right?
Like it was no d it was
a giant high school.
I learned nothing and met
no one that I could not
have met anywhere else.
Right.
Like literally anywhere else.
Right.
And I think about that,
that it'd be different.
You and I went to Stanford.
Okay?
That is not the same answer.
If you can get into Stanford,
dude, go to Stanford, okay?
Because you're gonna be forced
into a room of the highest
achieving people on the planet.
And if you can find any way to
do that, whether that's through,
through Stanford or your dad's
wealth management, uh, retreat.
Yeah, go do that.
Go do it.
Yeah.
Short of that, right?
Not quite the same thing.
It's funny, I, I go back to
those experiences and in my
case, the, the things that
I took away from it were
definitely not the education.
Right, right.
There were some people that
I met that were important.
Definitely changed my path
in life, not necessarily for
the reasons you might think.
Like one of them just happened
to be a good buddy that led
me to Cyprus, which is where I
met my wife and you know Right.
Whole family resulted from that,
so yes, very important things
happened there that, as you
said, could have just as easily
happened anywhere else, right.
It could have been a
coworker, random particle
collision and nothing more.
It could have been a roommate,
it could have been a coworker,
like, I mean, that's exactly it.
It's bananas because what we
do is we create this single
path scenario that said, the
only reason you were able to
do this, this thing, whatever,
meet these people is because
you went to this place.
Now, pause there for a second.
That would be like saying.
You're saying that if I didn't
go to college, I would just
sit home in a bubble boy bubble
for five years straight and not
interact with any other humans.
Careful, you're
gonna piss off all of
Gen Z if you're
not real careful.
Here Will.
Okay.
Real careful.
Exactly.
Gotta
happen.
But, so, so let's zoom out for
a sec, because I really wanna.
Unpack this one.
Not just for us
as parents, right.
And who've been through
this, but really for
the benefit of founders.
Yes.
And for the benefit of aspiring
founders who maybe are, are
sitting on this decision right
now or parents who are kind
of like, you know, my friend
that I was at lunch with
and are like, I'm having a
harder and harder time saying
you have to go to college.
Particularly for a founder.
Yeah.
Without anything to
back it up and before
we get into it and for.
People that are, you know, ready
to break out the pitchforks.
We're not talking about
doctors, we're not talking
about middle managers.
We're not talking about people
that wanna become historians.
Right.
So for all of you go
to college, right?
Yeah.
And enjoy it.
We're talking specifically.
About the, the value of if
you want to become a founder,
if that is your vocation
or what you want to do,
is college the best path?
And by the way, if, if you
came out with a pitchfork,
get your ass back in the
barn and shovel some shit
and let us tell you about
what the future looks like.
Okay.
I'd be terrified.
So, okay.
So, so first off, let's,
let's go through the
obvious, uh, things, right?
Yeah.
Uh, let's talk
about the economics.
The economics of
current education.
Yep.
Okay.
So if we're talking about
just the degree, okay.
This is crazy.
Just the degree, not the
room and board and everything
else that comes with it.
Average in-state degree, four
years is really, five years
is a hundred thousand dollars.
I. Right.
So that is a hundred thousand
dollars of real investment
for an in-state school.
In-state state funded
school, correct?
Right.
Heavily subsidized.
Yep.
If you go to the not
subsidized version, you go to
a private university, 220,000.
Again, that is before all
the other requisite costs.
We don't need to tell anybody
that student loans are
crushing everybody and they're
overwhelming, et cetera.
But Ryan, you and I both
as, as parents, ran a
little math recently.
We
sure did.
And Napkin got a lot
longer than I expected
as to how much it costs, write
that check for your kids versus
what you could have otherwise
done for them with that money.
Yeah.
What, what math at a high level
did you run?
So look, it was just the, the,
the compounding over time.
Like even just starting with
something as simple and basic as
that, which isn't all that there
is to be said for that, right?
Because there's also the,
the time, opportunity cost.
But just on the, purely on the
financial side, if you look
at what you could do with that
same amount of money and you
know, you and I were taking this
all the way back down to where
our kids are now, which is in,
in grade school where we're
paying to send them to private
schools, that sub compounds and
you add that to the university
costs, all of a sudden, you
know, we're looking at millions
of dollars and, and it.
Cash flow of five to $10,000 in
an annuity for their entire life
if they forego these amazing
experiences of, of private
school in the 13th grade, right?
Yep.
So it's like, it's
hard to ignore.
It's hard to ignore and, and
look something else that,
that doesn't account for
will, which is that there's
the cost of that degree.
You said there's, there's, you
weren't including the cost of
things like room and board,
but the vast majority of people
are financing this stuff.
Right, which means you are
also paying interest on this,
the compounded cost,
right?
So not only, not only are you
not only compounding your, your
time and your money loss at the
beginning, you're compounding
the amount of time and the
amount of money that it takes
you to overcome that, right?
So it gets.
Really shitty.
Really quick, I wanna run
two scenarios on the numbers.
Okay.
Uh, scenario number one, I
take, I take whatever debt
I'm, I'm gonna incur, it's
called a hundred thousand
dollars or whatever.
It's gonna be $200,000.
And then I apply compounding
over 25 years and whatever
that comes out to, and it
comes out to something,
bananas, like 300,000.
I did it.
I have it right
here in front of me.
Okay?
Go, go.
If you compound, I
did it at two 20.
I did it at two 20, which
was a, a stat I came up with.
I think that was
the average cost of
university overall, right?
So that may include some room
and board, whatever it is.
What It's 220,000 compound.
And I went ahead and
did it for 45 years.
'cause I thought we'll just
go from 20 to retirement age.
Right?
Okay, sure.
Just for funsies, at a low end
return, six to 8%, you're gonna
end up with somewhere between
seven and and $9 million.
Pause for a second.
I, I just want, I want
the audience to understand
what we're saying.
Taking that money, remember
that's net of taxes.
In order for you to get
that right, taking that
same money instead of
giving it to a university.
You just, you put it a
retirement account, an s and p
index fund that gets
index fund, right?
Exactly.
Six to 8% per year.
Right.
If you get closer to the actual
market return of eight to 10%,
that turns into $17.54 million.
Seriously?
Yep.
God damn.
Okay, so that's 45 years.
That's a long period of time.
No, no.
Massive time.
It's also the same amount of
time that you would normally
work, and I'd love to know
how many college graduates.
With all that extra
money they make, thanks
to the degree, yeah.
Have $17.5 million to retire
on.
Okay.
How about this one?
I ran the numbers for
my kids who are both in
a private school, okay?
12 years of private
school, okay?
Tuition is, it breaks out to
about $3,000 per month per kid.
Okay?
So that's $6,000 a month.
Over the course of 12 years,
it's actually a little bit
longer, the kindergarten
stuff, but over the course
of 12 years net, I'm
gonna drop about a million
dollars on their education.
By the way, this is
before they go to college.
Yep.
Okay.
Now we're in a little bit of
math on that and terrified
my wife in the process.
Okay.
I said, okay, so how
did we just take in that
same amount of money?
Okay.
And instead of sending
it to the school, we sent
it to our money manager.
Right, you know, to invest.
Okay.
We were looking at a slightly
higher re return on money, about
12%, which actually, I mean,
if you really track the s and
p, it's fairly well, but let's
just bear with me to, I was
accounting
for some things like inflation,
so Yeah.
No, no, no doubt.
No doubt.
So, so this is not inflation
adjusted or anything else
like that, which would
be a meaningful offset if
we did nothing but that.
Okay.
This, this one's
gonna be even simpler.
I'm not even using compounding.
If we took all the money that
we were otherwise, gonna send
them through private school.
Uh, again, this is before
college, and just put it
in a money market account
or, or like an index
fund or whatever, right?
By the end of, by the time
they graduated high school.
Our dowry gift?
Yes.
To each of them.
Let's say combined would
be a million dollars.
Okay, so here's what we'd
say to our kids Before you
consider college, remember
that our million dollars
that's going to be generating
12% a year will generate 120.
Thousand dollars
for the two of you?
Yeah.
For life.
That's assuming you
spent it and you didn't
reinvest it and compound.
If you compound it,
you get Ryan's number.
Yeah,
but what I'm saying is
if you spent every penny
of that return, you would
each have $6,000 before you
rolled out of bed every year.
For the rest of your life.
Every month.
For every year
For, oh, I'm sorry.
I'm
sorry.
Yeah.
Every month.
Right.
So, hold on, I'm, I'm gonna
do the rest of this, this
calculation real quick.
So, $6,000 times 12,
$72,000 a year time.
We're doing 45 years.
Yep.
$3.2 million per kid.
Let's $3.2 million per,
per, without over 45 years.
They spend it every
month and soon they spent
it.
The
asset balance
is still there.
A hundred percent.
And so when we talk about
it's totally worth it
economically compared to what?
Compared to like, like
seriously, you can't say that
it's worth it and then refuse
to quantify it when you put
actual dollars toward it.
Let's, let's just all
agree that the, the cost of
education, that the net cost
of education has clearly
gotten beyond what could, what
most people could reasonably
return with that same money.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
And so when folks retreat from
that argument, they immediately
go into, yes, but those are the
formative years of your life.
And those are, you know, years
that, that you're gonna meet
people and evolve as a human
and, and have these experiences.
Okay.
We weren't suggesting to lock
you into a sarcophagus for,
for five to six years and then
release you back into the wild.
Yeah.
Like, like guys, we're gonna
use, uh, the Han solo cryo
chamber and we're just gonna
freeze you 'cause we don't even
wanna have to feed you during
this period while we're saving
this money for your future.
We're just gonna
put you into Sta
okay?
So, but, but let's
go take this further.
Remember we're talking
about founders.
So Ryan, let's say that
each of us, Hey, remember
the movie Trading Places
from the eighties?
Oh yeah.
Let's say you've got Dan Aykroyd
and I've got Eddie Murphy.
Perfect.
Okay.
And, uh, we're betting on
which one's going to do better.
Okay.
My Eddie Murphy.
Starts his own company.
Okay.
Your Dan Arod, he
goes to college.
Yeah.
Within the five years on average
that, that they're going to
evolve over the next five years.
Yep.
Which one of those two is
likely to come out further
ahead is the first test.
Beer pong.
So
say it.
So I've got you, but
hands, hands down.
Here's where it gets
interesting when people run
this calculation, like, where,
where could that time have been
better used for five years?
They make so many mistakes
in this calculation.
The first mistake they make
is they're like, well, my kid,
you know, wasn't mature enough.
Isn't, you know, blah,
blah, blah, isn't cool.
Then we're not talking
about your kid.
Right?
Like, right.
By the way, we're talking about
people that we're planning
on becoming founders now.
Right.
Yeah.
Like my buddy who I was,
uh, asked me to mentor
his kid at lunch is ready
to become a founder now.
Yeah, man.
That's the thing.
Like university for somebody
who's planning to be a founder
is just a really expensive
procrastination tool.
Unbelievable.
That's the only
way I can see it.
Here's, here's something else.
I wanna get your,
your take on this.
'cause here's an intangible.
It ties back to the
finances of it, but with,
with student loan debt.
Just hit what, like 1.75
trillion or something?
Yeah.
It's, it's bananas.
It's a massive amount of money.
Right.
So here's, here's something that
occurred to me the other day.
We've created an entire
generation of people who
are now maybe not completely
risk averse, but they're
now less risk tolerant.
They have this data anchor
hanging around the neck.
So there's, there's a
limit to what you can do
if, you know, like, look,
I got a thousand dollars a
month student loan payment.
I can't not have an income,
or I can't reduce, I can't
be ram and profitable while
also paying my student loans.
So I'm, I'm worried that we've
created an entire generation
of people who are going to
be employees simply because
they can't afford to take
the risk of being a founder
a hundred.
And they'll tell you the same,
they'll tell you the same.
Now let's keep our, our
little experiment, uh, going.
Sure.
Okay.
So my, a Murphy.
It goes out there.
Starts his own company.
Okay.
Now a couple interesting
things happen in that time.
I'm gonna, first, I'm gonna
use one scenario where he's
actually not successful.
Okay.
Okay.
In other words, like most
founders, he starts something,
it doesn't work out, tries
another thing, doesn't
work out, tries another
thing, doesn't work out.
Yeah.
Okay.
Which by the way, you could
do in that same period of
time, you could fail three
startups in the same amount
of time it takes and still be
ahead financially, probably.
Let me lay out a couple
different things.
The first massive miss that
people make when they try to
use this argument at 18 to 23,
again, we're using a five year
window for college, a 18 to 23.
You have by far, the most
fungible years of your life.
Yeah.
Okay.
As evidenced by people
going to college.
Yep.
In other words, if, if,
if, if my Eddie Murphy were
to swing for the fences.
In.
Absolutely miss.
It doesn't matter,
Ryan, how many times in
life are you allowed to
just go for it, right?
Put everything on the line,
miss completely, and have
it actually not matter.
Try that to a
42-year-old Eddie Murphy.
I. With three kids
in a mortgage.
Yeah.
Not gonna happen, right?
Yeah.
You're taking somebody who has
the greatest flexibility to
take risk at a time when all
they can do is learn and expand
and taking it away from them.
Yeah.
You're and say, no, go
do this other thing where
you're in a classroom.
At
best, you're rate limiting it.
At best.
At best, you're rate
limiting it, right?
At worse, they're gonna
have a completely change,
different and worse experience.
At best, you're rate limiting
that because you're putting 'em
into an extremely rigid system.
It just has to be by
definition.
I did it.
You did it.
Okay.
So, so I, I'll give my
own experience here.
I started my first
company when I was 19.
I was a, a, a student at Ohio
State, and I hated school.
Now, this isn't because
I, I love learning.
I hated school.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
And these two things aren't
mutually exclusive, right?
So, so what happens was,
uh, I'd go to class.
And they would hand me one book
and say, you have the whole
semester to read this one book.
Your digestion of it is
going to be, uh, quantified
and qualified by how well
you recite it on a test.
It turns out I'm actually
really bad at taking tests.
Yeah.
But I'm great at learning.
Yeah.
And that's how this
whole thing works.
And I remember I got through
like the first semester and
I was like, dumbfounded.
I was like, why am I paying you?
This is what I'm paying for.
Yeah.
To tell me to read a book.
What?
And then try to trick me.
Read a book and then
we're gonna try to trick
you.
That's the, that's
the game, right?
That's, I was like,
I was like, oh.
But no.
But we also have classes, we
have, we have classes where
we'll sit and lecture to you
where you tell me exactly
what I just read in the book.
I'm simplifying in not every
class and every university and
every teacher works at, but
it's pretty much my experience.
Okay.
And so after a while
I'm like, Hey, I love
this economics course.
Why don't I just read
the whole book now?
And
they were like,
whoa, whoa, whoa.
You can't read the whole
book now what you do with
the other nine weeks, idiot.
It's like, what?
Why is, what is taking tests
my, my road to learning?
Yeah.
Anyway, so I drop out and you
know, I, I've said this before,
I go to my guidance counselor
and this is like circa 92,
93, and I'm like, uh, no, 93.
And I'm like, Hey, uh, I wanna
drop outta college and I wanna
start an internet company.
And her first question
was, what's the internet?
There was a time
where nobody knew.
So I ended up starting this
company and by the time my
peers, the very people that
I was like, still had as
roommates, by the way, by the
time they had graduated college,
and by the time they were
looking for their first jobs,
like entering the workforce.
Yeah.
At, call it twenty
two, twenty three.
I already owned a home.
I'd been running my
company for years.
I, I was, my, my
resume said CEO.
Right?
Like I was light years
ahead of where they were.
And not only that, they
would never catch up.
Yeah.
Because if you started that
early, at that much of a,
of a, a forward progression,
it's almost impossible
by someone else's rate
limiting to ever catch up.
It's compounding at
work in the same way.
Right?
Not basically only in
financial terms, but the,
the same compounding occurs.
We start stacking up those,
those experiences that
resume early on, it just
continues to grow from there.
Right.
And it snowballs
build on that.
Right.
Because I wanna ask you this,
take your experience, because
you started an agency too,
think of how quickly you learned
because you didn't have a boss.
Meaning like you weren't
rate limited by being
the intern, right?
Yeah.
Compared to your peers.
Who had to then take their
degree, get whatever job
was afforded to them.
Yeah.
And work at their pace.
And learn at their pace.
How was that different
you learning at your own
pace?
It was night and day because
not only was I learning at my
own pace, I was learning the
things I needed to execute in
the industry I wanted to be in.
They're being taught
from an economics book.
Right.
Not that the principles
of macroeconomics aren't
important, that the principles
of microeconomics aren't
important, but like taught
at the level that they are.
It's so far.
From how you would actually
apply to that stuff.
That is completely irrelevant.
So it wasn't just
the pace of learning.
It was what I was
learning in particular.
Yeah, that's my point.
That absolutely changed the
pace and the outcomes, right?
Like let's just even say
forget, hold pace aside.
Let's say we both learn
at exactly the same pace.
The challenge is the
stuff that they learned
wasn't relevant or useful.
And the stuff that I did was.
They're going, well, I
learned just as fast as Ryan.
Yeah, but you learned some
shit we don't need you to do.
So what are we gonna do with it?
We gotta start you here.
He can start
here.
You
know something that's really
funny about everything
we talk about here is
that none of it is new.
Everything you're dealing
with right now has been done a
thousand times before you, which
means the answer already exists.
You may just not know it.
But that's okay.
That's kind of what
we're here to do.
We talk about this stuff on
the show, but we actually
solve these problems all
dayLong@groups.startups.com.
So if any of this sounds
familiar, stop guessing
about what to do, let us just
give you the answers to the
test and be done with it.
Also, this is, again,
this whole conversation
is specific to founders.
Founders need such a broad
skillset of things to learn.
If I'm a founder, I have
to have some fundamental
knowledge of finance.
Yep.
Of marketing, of product
development, and depending
on my thing code, it
could be manufacturing.
Yep.
It could be sales.
I had to learn all
of those things.
Wait, will, did you just throw
a hand grenade into the whole,
but we want to create will
rounded individuals argument for
university too at the same time.
Did you just do that?
In my limited experience
in college, and again, I'll
go back to I love to learn.
I absolutely love to learn.
You still do it on a
daily basis.
I watch you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's my thing.
But I, I found college to
be incredibly rate limiting.
I wanted to learn and act and
do much faster than college was
possibly gonna not just read
and read and listen
and listen and
read and read and read and test.
I wanted to be in the business
of getting shit done, not in
the business of taking tests.
And, and that's, that's
what my experience was.
Had the experience been
different if college wasn't
about testing or because I
wanted to become a founder,
it turned out, had they been
the best possible place for
me to become a founder, Ryan,
I would've been fired up.
Like I would've never left.
Yeah, right.
It was a startup
lab, but they weren't
or something, or just,
yeah, something other
than what it actually is.
And so when I look at things
that, that I learned that
I was, you know, kind of
turned onto that were, uh,
outside of my field of study,
here's some interesting ones.
Number one, my field
of study was theater.
Mm-hmm.
Which is ironic because I didn't
care about theater whatsoever,
but I took it because it had
the lowest academic requirements
and I figured is the one
thing I couldn't fail out of,
but that's here nor there.
And, but as part of that, I was
forced to take a philosophy,
uh, class, and I loved it.
Absolutely love
philosophy, right?
And I dug in deep and I started
getting into all kinds of
books that weren't recommended.
You know, as part of the,
the curriculum I took an
economics course blew my mind.
Okay?
Now mind you, I'm also 18 years
old, so kind of whatever you
put in front of me, this is
all, it's gonna blow my mind.
Right?
Of
course.
It's like I'm, I dunno
anything, so I can't say
like, college gave that to me.
Yeah.
Anybody that
would've handed me a
book.
Yeah, a book.
Literally a anything literal,
any kinda information, a
little bit of context, and,
and we were off to races.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so the idea that I
needed college to be able
to access that information,
first off is dated as hell.
Right.
In the last five years, and
Ryan, you and I share stories
about this all the time.
In the last five years,
I've gone down so many
learning rabbit holes, right?
I've learned 3D modeling.
I've learned architecture, I've
learned code, I've learned,
you know, stable diffusion, ai.
I, I've learned like all of
this stuff, and it would never
occur to me in a million years
to take a college course to.
To learn anything I've
learned cabinet making.
Yeah,
right.
I'm like a professional
cabinet maker.
I've never been to the before.
You taught me how to
make cabinets based
on your learnings.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
So like this idea that college
has this monopoly effect on
learning, I. Is bananas to
me because like in what year?
Is that true?
Certainly not in 2025.
No, it's not.
You got a couple
more tools these days.
No, dude, I, I think I told
you this story already,
but I learned Python while
I was still in university.
Right.
I took a, a Python.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Course I learned Python.
Well, then enough time went by
that I had basically forgotten
Python, and so what did I do?
I went and learned it
from a 12-year-old.
I think at 1213, I mean,
I'm not, I'm not kidding,
I'm not making this up.
12, 13, 14-year-old on YouTube.
Probably getting that ROI, in
terms of the amount of time that
I spent on, it was not much.
And the amount of money
I spent on it was zero.
Apart from having to consume
a couple of ads, try getting
that from a tenured professor.
I dare you
again, when we're talking
specifically about becoming
a founder, there as, as Le
Neeson say, a certain set
of tools that you need.
The way I look at it is for
the things that we need,
most of it can't be taught as
much as it has to be learned
in the distinction there.
Learned by doing, not
taught by preaching.
Yeah.
When you and I sit down, we
coach founders all day long.
This is literally
what we do all day.
What we do is we say,
here's roughly where
you need to be pointed.
Now go do.
That way you'll learn.
And I've never seen
it done otherwise.
I've never been able
to teach it to you.
So you didn't have to learn it
in the case of being a founder.
Yeah.
Look, I think, I think by the
time we, we try to encapsulate
enough knowledge that it is
even worth teaching in that
traditional sense, the half-life
of what we learn in college
now is shrinking faster than
the time it takes to graduate.
That's part of the problem.
It's expired before
you get to use it.
Yeah, we, we get into this whole
thing where, like in the, in
the whole time that we've hired
people and in my 31 year career,
I've hired thousands of people.
I have never, ever, ever.
Heard one person in a
meeting say, oh, you know
what, here's the answer.
I learned this in college.
Unless it was like the most
bizarre one-off thing that
like had nothing to do with
what we were talking about.
And again, if, if you say,
well, hell, whoa, hold again.
These are all the colleges
isn't a trade school.
Okay.
Then if you wanna learn
a trade, don't go there.
Like, if your trade is being
a founder, then that's, that's
not the right fit for you.
I feel like this idea of
saying college might be the
wrong fit has become this
taboo thing that we're not
allowed to say out loud.
Why?
Why is it still a taboo?
Right?
Like, why would parents rather
their kid get a philosophy
degree then attempt starting
a million dollar business?
I guess one of 'em fits
on a bumper sticker.
The other one doesn't.
I don't know, like
my takeaway has always been
that for a very long time,
certainly, certainly in the
United States here, um, it
has been instantiated that
college equals success.
Yeah.
Or more specifically,
what we really are saying.
Nobody's allowed to say
it is college separates
you from the unsuccessful.
Yep.
Okay.
And what that used to mean is
that it's an an agriculture job.
And by the way, I'm not
knocking people in agriculture.
It's a manufacturing
job, not knocking
people in manufacturing.
Yep.
But the idea was that if you
went to college, you would
separate yourself from your
peers that would otherwise
do manual or unskilled labor.
It was a financial
side of the tracks.
Correct.
Type delineation.
Right, right.
The problem is now
you're looking, you on
the other side like.
There's only six people
over on the other side.
Now what, what, what are
we all doing over here?
Right, right.
Who's actually doing
those jobs now?
Where?
Where's our food in our
manufacturing gonna come from?
To be fair, that same argument
existed when I was growing up.
Yeah.
Around getting a diploma.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You gotta get your
high school diploma.
Yep.
Right.
And then it just
became table stakes.
It was, of course, people
have a diploma now, and this
is what's pissing people off.
A bachelor's degree has
become so meaningless Yep.
Across so many things.
Yep.
That paying this massive premium
to essentially get table stakes
and to your point where you look
around the room and everybody's
already there to begin with.
So I, I think that's dangerous.
And then this notion has become,
college is this great separator.
Yes.
But that doesn't mean
it's the only separator.
Like that is the, not the
only way to separate yourself.
And what I tell, uh, young
people now who are going
through, you know, high school,
et cetera, I said, if you're
relying on college to separate
yourself, you are screwed
from the jump because college
will no longer separate you.
It's, it's not what
you learn in college.
It's what you do
when you're young.
It's the experience.
You, you get.
You don't wanna be 22
with a diploma, you wanna
be 22 with a resume.
And the difference is doing.
A hundred percent.
That's what it comes down to.
Right?
And I think that we've,
we've confused credentials
with capability, right?
LinkedIn loves degrees,
but you know what?
Customers and employers
love solutions, skills,
outcomes, right?
Did you scale a customer
acquisition campaign?
Yes or no?
Yeah, exactly.
Right?
That's what it comes down to.
So, you know, I think the,
but, but to your point,
like the diploma degree
industrial complex is real.
Yeah.
And, and again, part of
it's that generational
thing I was talking about
at the beginning, right?
Part of it is almost.
To some degree, it's an
ego thing saying, I can
provide this for you, child.
Yeah.
Right.
Whether you need it or not.
Again, I'm gonna give this
to you because that makes
me feel good, but I feel,
again, like I'm gonna come
back to what I said before.
I feel like it's costing us
a, not an entire generation,
but it is reducing, at least
geometrically the number of
people who are going to start
a business because they have.
The pressure to go to
university, and once they
do that, then they have the
pressure to get ROI from
that degree, which we can
talk about that in a second.
And then there's the, the fact
they probably have debt hanging
around their neck, which is
gonna keep them from having the
risk tolerance to start in the
first place.
But let's take it back
to the premise here.
Yep.
Is that the best path if you
want to become a founder?
No.
If you wanna become a
founder, how is it that the
five years you're going to
invest in college will have
a better ROI for becoming
a founder than five years?
You're gonna invest
actually starting a company.
Yeah.
What are you gonna have
as a starting place at 23
years old, having graduated
college to become a founder
that you wouldn't have had,
that you'd have lost out
on by having just started.
Any business, whether it
was successful or not, in
running it for five years
or running, you know, the
next business, the next
business, the next business.
When you start something,
you are force fed education
at a fire hose rate.
Right.
Ryan, when you and I started
our businesses, we both started,
uh, interactive agencies.
We had to learn sales, we had
to learn finance, and what
was fascinating to me is that
I generally, like when I was
sitting in a classroom, Ryan,
I would zone out so fast.
I zoned out so fast, but as soon
as you said this information
has consequence for you, I
was like, Rainman, right?
Like I was just
like all about it.
I was the Einstein
in the room, right.
Doing and starting
my own business.
Like, I'll give you an example.
When I was in high
school, in, in college, I
never made it past math.
Oh 5 0 0 5 oh is so
remedial that you're not
even to the hundreds yet.
Yeah.
I was like, I didn't
know that existed.
Yeah, I do because I failed
algebra in freshman year of
high school and never completed
algebra all the way through
my sophomore year of college.
Okay, now, now I
wanna pause on that.
So clearly I'm not sweet
at algebra, but I've been
a CFO for 25 years now.
I'm the startups.com CFO.
I'm pretty good with
numbers actually.
I'm pretty good with numbers,
but I'm not great at algebra.
Now just pause
there for a second.
The moment you said Will, here
are things with variables.
And variables could
create conditions that
you're trying to get to.
And if you put dollar
signs in front of those
variables, that is your
income we're talking about.
You can have house if you solve
for X, you could not have house
if you don't solve for X. Yes.
Oh, wow.
All of a sudden, next got a
real important, my point is
when you force someone young
with that big sponge of a
brain, especially a founder.
Into situations where they
have to learn customer
acquisition, they have to
learn, uh, finance, et cetera.
They are gonna learn
geometrically faster Yes.
Than they would possibly
have to learn because they
have a test coming up.
Yeah.
It's not even remotely close.
And I think that alone
is a powerful motivator.
We kind of jumped outta
order 'cause I feel like
we got into college doesn't
have monopoly on learning.
Then we jump back to taboo.
Yeah.
That's why I call it
out because the way the
conversation is going, it works.
It made more sense
to cover that.
Yeah.
It's, I just to know how, if you
want to begin the wind down from
here, wanna close out, it's a
bit
of the,
the, the end of taboo to say
this out loud and it's a bit
of a restart the conversation.
Founders don't look at what
everybody else is doing.
That's sort of the point.
If you're a founder, your first
thought is, Hey, yeah, that
worked for everybody else, but
I'm gonna go over here because
that's not what works for me.
Why don't you open up that part?
Like, Hey Will, this
is like fundamental.
I. And how founders think.
Sure.
If they weren't questioning
college, they probably wouldn't
be founders to begin with.
Yeah, I mean, this
feels fundamental.
Well, this is like
founder 1 0 1.
We, we look at things
differently, right?
We think about risk tolerance,
we think about opportunity
costs in a different way.
If you weren't already
somehow questioning the
value of a, of a university
degree, you probably aren't
exactly on the founder path.
At least not yet, right?
Some people don't discover
this stuff until later.
Like they go work a shitty job
for a couple years and realize
like, I am never gonna make back
the money I spent on this thing.
Um, and I'm not even in
the field that I graduated
from and I'm underemployed
and, and, and, and, and.
Like, yeah, this is.
Kind of like the, the, the
threads of the fabric were
weaving anyways, isn't it?
It's a bit of a
litmus test, right?
Like, and, and again, this
isn't saying if you go to
college, you can't be a founder.
It's saying if you're meant
to be a founder and you
aren't questioning things
like this, like, Hey, this
is what everybody else does.
I. It's probably not
your default condition.
I, the reason I was running to
my guidance counselor when I was
19 years old, like giddy as can
be about dropping outta college
was because I looked at the full
equation and I was like, this
is a giant waste of my time.
And it was, and I, and
I don't look at college
as this, oh my God.
It's, it's, you know,
it's, it's untouchable.
No, college is a service.
It's something I pay money for
and it delivers or it doesn't.
Now there's nothing wrong
with the college I went to.
I was not right for college.
Yeah.
It's that simple.
Well,
the
outcome all
wanted in life didn't map
back to starting with college.
Yeah.
They're like, Hey, if you
follow this path in five
years, you'll be able to
start doing what you wanna do.
I'm like, why?
Yeah.
What's wrong with
what I wanna today?
Wait five years.
Yeah.
Right.
I wanna do it now.
Like you're in my way for
a certain number of people.
And I think this is highly
relevant to many founders.
The idea of going through
this kind of structured,
we're gonna feed you as we go.
Yeah.
And we'll tell you at which
pace you've advanced is
absolutely antithetical.
Yeah.
To how we're built.
Like to me, that is torture.
That's not an accelerant.
That's the part that
sounds like heresy to us.
That's the part
that sounds like it.
It's just absolutely crazy.
Look, like you said,
college, it's college isn't
evil, it's just optional.
And especially,
especially for founders.
But we Correct.
Begun to treat
optional like heresy.
It's not right, because again,
to us the opposite sounds true.
You're saying like, hang
on, you're gonna spend
four to six years preparing
me for the real world.
By keeping me away from most
of the things I'm gonna do
in the real world, I why?
Right?
To your point, like, why can't I
just start doing that stuff now?
What, what is it?
What?
Why do I need to sit on a lab
bench for five or six years?
If I've got tools, I can just
start doing something now.
I remember, uh, a buddy of
mine, actually, a guy you
know as well, um, he was
still in college, right?
And he's like, senior year,
he, uh, he's still at his, his
his frat house right on campus.
And, uh, he and I were going
out that night and he said,
Hey, can you pick me up?
I was like, oh, yeah,
sure, I'll, I'll be by,
you know, whatever time.
So I pull up and it was
still light outside.
It was like, like eight
30 in the evening on a,
like, in a late spring
or something like that.
And I pull up, it dawns on
me because Ryan, I've been so
heads down at this point that
everything that I pull up to
is a bunch of bikes chained
up to a chain link Fang.
Right.
It's like one kid with like a
1982 Dotson and, and I'm pulling
up in a new Lamborghini, right?
And I'm thinking to myself, I
could have pulled up on a bike,
in fact, like a few years ago.
That's.
I'm using Lamborghini as as
as a comparison, although
that that is what happened.
But I'm using that
as an example.
Like it's a comparison for me
to say, what did I just give up?
Now a lot of people will
jump on that and say, yeah,
well maybe things went well
for you, but they didn't
go well for, uh, yeah.
I'm not saying it doesn't
have to be that outcome.
It could have been
I. Anything else?
It could have been
something as simple as I
have income and my friends
don't even have a job yet.
That justifies it for me.
Right.
But I, I thought about,
had I stayed on that path
as a founder, how much I
would have given up, how
much I would've given up.
And by the way, back then
it was heresy to say, I'm
dropping outta college.
You like my grandmother cried.
When she heard I dropped out of
college, I, I'll never forget,
she was so disappointed in me.
She was like, you're the first
person in the family, you
know, that's gone to college.
Oh, I'm the first
person to drop out too.
And like I was, I was
thinking like how bad I felt
where I should have been.
Proud.
Yeah.
I was made to feel
shitty about it.
And I, I, I, I
think that's a loss.
I mean, like, if, if, if your
kiddos now were to say, Hey dad,
I don't wanna go to college,
but I wanna be a founder.
I could see, you know,
you supporting that.
But if they said, I don't
wanna go to college 'cause I
just don't think it's worth
it and it's not something
I wanna pursue, what would
be your response to that?
You know, I,
I would want understand
more about why.
So I think that's, that's the
interesting thing about, you
know, your, your grandmother,
anybody questioning this,
this whole notion of like,
you were, you know, you
felt sad and, and, and, and
shamed instead of, yeah.
Feeling happy with the decision.
And the reality is like you
decided to go to university
extremely arbitrarily.
Right?
Because there was a very,
very vague promise of
better on other side, yeah.
Than just that, right?
But lots of cost upfront, lots
of time upfront, all that stuff.
Whereas the other path, you
know, you had objectively
chosen at that point, you were
very sure and clear, right?
You had already started
the company, you were
already doing something.
It wasn't like you were
like, Hey, I'm gonna
quit so I can do this.
You're like, I'm
already doing this.
I need to quit.
And so I think that would be my,
my, not pushback necessarily,
but that's what I would
encourage them to explore is
like, okay, I understand you
don't wanna do this and you
don't think it's worth it.
What do you think
is more worth it?
I wanna know what
the alternative is.
Don't tell me you're
not doing this.
Tell me what you are doing.
Right.
I am not pursuing university.
Cool.
What are you pursuing?
As long as you're
pursuing something great.
Right.
And even if that's, look, I
want to find out what happens
if I just surf for the next five
years, because here's the plan I
have on the other side of that.
Okay, cool.
Let's talk about that.
I'm not, I don't, I don't have
a rigid sense for what I think
they need or want to do, right?
As long as I feel like they
have given the exploration,
the amount of time that it's
due and that they're Mac,
they're basing on something.
At least it doesn't have
to be fully objective.
It can be some subjectivity to
it, but it's not just arbitrary
like, well, college sounds
lame, I don't wanna do it.
Okay, cool.
You still got 24 hours to
feel like everybody else, so
what are you gonna do with it?
I think for a lot of
people, this idea that
college equals success.
Yeah.
In some cases may
have some truth to it.
It may have it right it, but
I think this idea, but that,
I think it's diminishing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think for some people,
to your point, correct,
it still absolutely will.
Yes.
Figuring out who those
people are is the
challenge at this point.
My daughter wants to
become a cardiologist.
I'm pretty sure she shouldn't
just go around on her own,
learn off YouTube and try
some, some, some test.
Heart transplants
order to be like, uh,
order.
It's probably a market man.
There's probably a market
like, look, I can't afford
a real heart surgeon.
How many that you watched,
right?
Right.
Right.
So yes, again, you know,
uh, uh, an academic
pursuit might makes sense.
However, I will say
this, I think we have to
restart this conversation.
Yeah.
I think for all of us,
we, it's particularly for
founders, particularly for
founders, we can't keep saying
college is the only answer.
I think the new path for kids
coming outta high school,
looking at college, we have
to say, if you wanna be a
founder, and these are the
things you want to accomplish,
and these are the things you
need to learn, what are your
different paths to doing it?
And where does college
rank on its own merits?
Not based on some myth that
we've created over the years on
its own merits, on its own cost.
Is it the number one place that
you can invest your time, which
is the most important thing?
Your attention as
well as your money.
And if it's not, college
goes out and you know what
you do, you start your own
company like we all do.
Overthinking your startup
because you're going it alone.
You don't have to, and honestly,
you shouldn't because instead,
you can learn directly from
peers who've been in your shoes.
Connect with bootstrap
founders and the advisors
helping them win in the
startups.com community.
Check out the startups.com
community@www.startups.com
to see if it's for you.
Could be just the
thing you need.
I hope to see you inside.