80% of self-made billionaires went to college

Less than 50% of people went to college.

Despite that, 80% of self-made billionaires went to college.

  (eq 'correlation 'causation) => NIL

see: http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

Warning Sign I7: Confusing Correlation with Causation

If readers didn't understand the parent and grandparent posts to imply something more significant than basic math, I doubt the posts would have received so many upvotes.

I was merely pointing out that the article takes the exceptions (dropouts that became billionaires) as the rule, when in fact the opposite is true: dropouts don't become billionaires; graduates do.

The article says the probability of becoming a billionaire increases if you are a dropout because 20% of billionaires are dropouts. But in fact, because there are many more people who didnt complete college than who did, this is even more wrong than if you didn't take that into consideration(which it seems the article didn't).

Like pretty much every article in any type of popular publication, the statistical analysis in this article is wrong. Not "somewhat off", but "wrong". Like, if I was a stat teacher, I would put "F" at the top of the page. Just like I put "F" in my mind on every CNBC or WSJ headline that says "Market drops because of...".

My comment was very short because if I put in much time debunking improper statistics I'd run out of time fast.

Except that isn't interesting. Money--particularly in large quantities--is more interesting than teeth.

It's just not practical advice and society doesn't treat folks in the status quo particularly well who do so. You might get far, but inevitably you'll get stuck in a rut somewhere along the way, if you end up out of startupland, because of your lack of an degree or sometimes, an advanced degree or two.

It's not fair, but that's the way the world is. If brilliant folks were more interested in finding ways to bust the higher ed/accreditation monopoly, rather than building the next Facebook or Twitter-killer, perhaps we can solve this problem before our kids become adults.

I'd argue that if you have what it takes to create a successful tech startup (technical skills, strong drive/work ethic, determination, unhealthy willingness to work 16 hours a day, etc...) then you could do just fine dropping out of college. If you don't have those things, then I'd say stay in college for sure, but you won't start a successful startup regardless.

I'm also not sure what you want people to "fix" in higher education. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it sounds like you want EVERYONE to create startups. No matter how amazing college is, most people simply don't the right set of traits for that, and that's 100% okay! Society needs artists, call reps, grocery store managers, stay at home moms/dads, and everything else. Plus I honestly don't think sitting at the computer for 10-18 hours/day is physically or mentally healthy. So while I do it a lot, I'm really glad most people don't.

I don't know the specifics of your situtation, but it seems to me that most "self-made" people had a lot of educational and social capital built up already. They might have taken a year or two voluntarily outside the system, but it was only because, previously their parents were themselves well educated and made enough money to send their kids to good schools and nurture their interests and talents. So while the child may be exceptional and hard-working, and legitimately earned success, it's usually not quite accurate to say there was no support.

Again, I'm not saying this is you, but I see it a lot. I know of maybe one person who overcame a true working class background where their parents actually discouraged them from even going into computers. Everyone else I know in this game is middle class, even upper middle class.

I'm also interested in how much milieu seems to affect outcomes. People who just grew up around independent professionals or entrepreneurs have no trouble visualizing themselves doing that, and they know all the social cues.

While I certainly benefited from having good parents, I didn't have the direct financial support the OP referred to. My point being that you can financially bootstrap yourself without rich parents and without looking at college as "free" rent and food.

I agree with you about the support of parents, focus on education, access to computers, visibility to successful people, etc... means a lot. However very little if any of that can fixed by tinkering with higher educational institutions. It's cultural, and it's economic.

While I'd love to see everyone given the same opportunities, support, etc... it's confusing because we can't have everyone working in nice offices making $100k+/year. People still need to work at McDonalds, drive street sweepers, pick up trash, and all the other key roles in our society. Is it "fair" that upper middle class kids have a better chance of being upper middle class themselves? No. Is there a good way to fix that? Not that I know of.

Also, universal and well-funded health insurance is a great way to promote entrepreurial risk-taking. I know so many Americans who are scared to make the leap because they have a member of their family who needs some sort of medical care.

Street sweeping may be an unattractive job for many, which is why it should have a relatively high wage and a good benefits plan.

Actually the fact that you are even suggesting that society needs misery and unhappiness to function... well, this sounds very provocative, but it tells me a lot about your background. It's the sort of thing that is a universal but unstated assumption if you are middle class to elite. The theory is that some, if not most, people are going to have sucky jobs, schools, lives, and opportunities, and this is a good thing, because it motivates people to strive for the "better" jobs. Never mind that this often condemns people to repeat the misfortunes of their parents, no matter how talented they are.

In the USA, people look back on the 50s as some kind of golden era of hard work and conservative values, but that was when there was the least income disparity, the most investment in infrastructure and education (even for adults), and some of the highest tax rates.

Anyway I speak as a guy who went to a fancy private school, but as the token "ethnic" guy whose parents don't go for skiing weekends in foreign countries. So, I've been fortunate enough to see both sides.

Most high schools, including one I went to in a very poor blue collar ex-fishing town, offer tutoring, clubs, athletics, and access to the "computer lab". The issue is that, in general (there are exceptions of course), kids who's parents didn't put much emphasis on eduction, and who didn't expose their child to the concept that they can do anything, be anything, that their potential is limitless, weren't at all interested in taking advantage of those programs. They'd rather hang out with their friends and/or get into trouble. The problem isn't that the schools aren't offering those types of supports, the issue is that the parental and culture influences drive the kids away from those educationally supporting offerings.

By the time you hit high school, (again, in general), you're either focused on education, or you're not. I think parents play the largest role, with the societal obsession with sports, hip hop stars, and anti-intellectualism playing a smaller but significant role.

Part of it also is that some people are smarter than other. Some people are better at math, or computers, or art, or football than others. Some people simply work harder than others. People tend to gravitate to things they enjoy, especially for after school elective programs. Your average 90 IQ kid isn't going to want to spend afternoons struggling to succeed on the debate team. Doubly so because everyone who's not on the debate team tends to make fun of the kids who are.

I'm not suggesting society needs misery or unhappiness to function. I have no idea where that came from. I'm just suggesting that there will always be a wide range of salaries based on supply, demand, how replaceable you are, etc... Both of my divorced parents probably gross about $30k/year each. They're both very happy, and not miserable at all. If I could no longer work with computers I think I could be quite happy as a baker or a motorcycle mechanic, making 1/10 of what I make now. I don't want people to be unhappy, nor do I think there's any societal requirement for misery. All I said was I don't see how everyone can make $100k/year and work in cushy offices.

In addition to my time at the blue collar high school, I also attending Phillips Academy at Andover, one of the best private prep schools in the US. Was the quality of eduction there better than the blue collar school? Absolutely. The teachers were amazing, the resources were amazing, etc... If you made every high school like Andover (ignoring the factors that make this impossible - lack of teachers of that skill level, break-down in the culture, cost, etc...) would that make everyone rich and successful? Not a chance! Yes, some kids would do very well, and would be better off than otherwise. The vast majority would flunk out due to not being able to keep up, or not being willing to put in the time/effort (again goes back to a combination of innate traits and abilities and parental influence during childhood). Obviously you can't have them all flunk out, since all the schools are now like this, so they don't fail, they move along, but they aren't keeping up with the teaching (assuming the teachers stay at the pace of the kids who are really getting the most of out this), so they don't pay attention, and they get bored, and they get nothing out of it, and end up just distracting the kids who are trying to learn. Oh wait, that's already what happened in every high school where the teachers don't cater to the lowest common denominator.

Anyhow, this is turning into a rant. I think that offering great education at the college level, or even the high school level will actually help a very small number of people. I'm not saying we shouldn't do it, but we shouldn't expect massive changes.

Artificially inflating the wages of low skill, easily replaceable jobs, such as street sweeping devalues money across the board, and helps no one.

Education was always second to sporting achievement in our family. When offered a partial scholarship to Uni in my last year of High School I had to turn it down as my parents were starting to charge rent (I turned 18). My brother was living rent free though and had been working for a year as a apprentice baker, this was because he dropped out of High School with 2 years left when my dad got him the apprenticeship through a golf buddy. The weird part of the story is he got the apprenticeship so young because he was the smartest of us 3 siblings.

I decided to skip uni and work in the Orchard for a year, I never got the change to take up the scholarship as my career got a lucky break not long after.

I know I'm not alone in my situation I have several friends back home with similar stories, its just blue collar or lower middle class living. I think that some people who have been raised by academics don't realize how little encouragement there is for the rest of us to go.

I had been in the aerospace engineering program. I had used computers, and knew a little LOGO and BASIC. Eventually I was able to get a job in tech support due to my communications skills and willingness to learn. Once I had that job, I learned Java, and the rest is history:)

If you're over the age of 27, your example just doesn't count. It's not nearly as easy today to do what you did, than it was a decade ago. The economy has changed dramatically and ancedotal experiences aside, it's hardly a blueprint for mass success.

There is no inverse relationship between "hard work" and "success" in a startup. But that's a fallacy that a lot of folks here seem to believe. If it worked for you, that's great. But it's not some sort of reality for everyone.

It's even easier. Enlightened hiring managers just want to see output: github, websites, blogs, downloadable software, etc. At the startups I've worked for recently we only looked thoroughly at a resume if the person had no online presence (which was already a red flag).

Maybe you won't get hired at Google or an investment bank, though.

I got a job at 17 writing reviews, when I left the job (due to the politics of the job) I had more than enough experience to apply for a job for one of the big magazines. What editors are looking for in writers is a great personal voice, which is something journalism classes teach out of you. I have never seen 'journalism degree' listed on any job in journalism, it's simply not wanted.

From my experience "enlightened hiring managers" are the exception rather than the rule.

If your point is: for the average person, college is important to success, then sure. My point is that for the tech startup founding type people here, college is probably not very important to success.

You called out startups in your OP "The only people who can afford to drop out of college to pursue a startup" so that's what I'm focusing on here.

I worked hard, picked up programming, and spent nights/spare time working on a program for our branch office, with the intention that I wanted to move up to corporate and be a full time programmer.

I busted my tail working, stayed motivated, gained experience, and when the app I wrote for our branch made it into the right hands (this was also planned, just had to wait for the timing to be right) they 'apprenticed me' into a .NET position, on the notion that I showed the right character to be a good employee and worked hard. That was several raises ago, and I'm still moving and improving, and getting serious real world experience in the field I want to make a career out of.

I grew up watching my Dad work 10-12 hour days at a company we owned, I was fortunate enough to have parents who always pushed us to achieve anything we wanted (and modest enough to never make us feel like we were anything more than middle class, there was money there, but instead of taking it for our pleasure, my father would reward employees and let it stay as profits for the business).

When I left the nest, I severed all financial ties with them to make it on my own, with my own independence. So I wasn't driving a car paid by them, or using a cell phone paid by them, or any of that.

The reason I got the first PC tech job even though I had a recreational tech history of computers and 5+ years of graphic/web design experience? Because I interviewed well and my former boss saw potential.

The world is full of opportunities for everyone, just look at the examples here. Such a wide range of people with different stories and experiences.

College is great, but I don't regret not going. I learned growing up how to teach myself through reading, research and practice, and I learn things faster that way.

I dropped out of college, where I was a poor student, to do back breaking labor and found my first startup living on the cheap in India. I have since tanked startups repeatedly. During my second startup I labored on building a 4000 sq foot house at $12 an hour while working part-time on my prototype. None of that required a parental safety net, just personal hardship.

Ironically, its been the best thing that could have happened to me. I'm an independent learner and so I was ill suited for college. In startups, I get to develop highly marketable, cutting-edge skills using technologies not taught in college or used in a corporate environment. I then apply these through consulting as the market catches up and get a big fat raise from the skills I develop at each startup.

Although some money from the startups would be nice, too :) Working on that.

If you want to do a startup, spend the 4 years that you would have spent in college learning how to program and making money doing that. Then, you'll be able to support your own startup.

You say that no one cares. But job postings all over the web pretty much speak the opposite. Google doesn't just want degrees, they want degrees from top schools.

So sure, if someone wants to work for a fly-by-night operation that MIGHT strike it rich, have a blast.

But if they actually want health insurance someday, then it might be handy to get the degree about the way.

People ask if you went to college and if you graduated, after that, no one cares it's true. But without it, you better have a compelling story or have contacts that "won't care."

Ten years ago or more, you could easily get away without having a degree. But graduating NOW and expecting to do that? Yeah right.

And if it were easy to take 4 years and learn to program and "make money doing it" without the slightest clue how to get there, then everyone would do it.

College affords you more than enough free time to "learn to program on the side to make money doing it" while also giving you a backup plan, in case your brilliant plans don't work out.

I've never had another company turn me down, even if they specifically "required" bachelors in CS, etc... in the job posting. And I'm not talking about "fly-by-night operations". Large companies, Fortune 500s, traditional non-tech focused companies, etc...

Assuming that you aren't on a 100% scholarship, someone (your parents or you by working part time) is paying for your rent and food. I think most places (Google aside) would hire someone with 1 year of contributing to a relevant open source project, or a couple small web applications launched, over someone with 4 years of learning the technology from 2-5 years ago. Experience DOING relevant work always trumps a college degree, especially in the tech field.

If you want to get a degree, that's great. I won't look down on you or even think for a second that you're wasting your time. But it's certainly not the only or even the best path.

Once was Google when they noticed the lack of an education section on my resume. The second was a startup in NY that was run by a couple of recent phd grads who had an issue with whether or not I would have fit into the culture (I passed several technical interviews). The third is my current employer AT&T Labs, but my manager pushed hard to get me in.

I've also been employed at Time Warner, Conde Nast & Viacom/MTV Networks (at a Director Level), so the bigger companies (Except for Google) will look past your qualifications if you can show you have the skillset required and the experience in using it.

As an employer when given the choice between a recent graduate with zero experience and someone who spent the past 4 years gaining experience in the industry I've usually gone with the non-graduate. (I always think what I was like at day zero of my first dev job verses the senior dev I was 4 years later).

I'm a writer, and my experience in journalism is that editors actively screen out people with degrees in journalism because it teaches them bad practices (In all actuality it teaches them good [read: old] practices, but kills personal voice which is now everything, praise Hunter S. Thompson!). 1+ years experience writing always beats 4+ years in a degree program with 0+ years experience actually writing.

I've always thought programming was akin to writing, it's all about putting pieces together to make the whole work better. My brother went the programming way and I went the writing way (I tried programming, but I quickly realized I couldn't do it as a day-to-day 9-5 job). So I don't really get why Google would require a degree, because surely the most important thing is if someones code is elegant.

Sure, if you want a top job with no proof that you have any ability to program, you need a degree.

But if they actually want health insurance someday, then it might be handy to get the degree about the way.

FWIW, I didn't finish college, and I have a great job, and even have health insurance. I have only interviewed for one job ever, everything else came to me by way of reputation.

Look, if you can cut it as a programmer you can cut it is a programmer. Start programming, get involved in some OSS projects, get your name out there!

If you really genuinely want to be a "Computer Software Engineer", spend 4 years networking with other engineers and honing in your programming skills, not taking sociology and micro economics.

My parents made less than $30k combined when I entered college in the late 90s. I dropped out after my freshman year, worked as a restaurant cashier and temp for about six months, then managed to land an entry-level media production job at a startup. Since then, I've slowly clawed my way up to a decent development gig at a major systems player in Silicon Valley, all without the benefit of a college degree, or any major financial support other than my own earnings.

Even several years after I first "broke in" to the industry, however, I've had entire years where I made only a few thousand dollars. If you're willing to live in shared housing, eat a lot of cheap stir-fry and soup, and occasionally suck it up and ask a friend or family member for a couple of hundred bucks to make rent that month, you can weather some pretty drastic changes in your income.

Regardless, after a decade or so of working as a developer, I've found that the lack of a college degree matters less and less. Am I less likely to be on the short list of folks to get promoted to upper management? Almost certainly. Does that bother me? Not really. I like writing code, and am happy to continue doing so until something else seems more interesting.

Alternatively, we can opt not to have kids so they don't have to deal with this problem or making a living in general at all. If the world isn't fair, why create more people that will then have to live through it?

Genius does not equal wealth or even success perhaps, but I think there can be parallels drawn between them. Mr. Buffet himself said he would not have been the success he is if he were born in some place like Peru or something.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_billionaires_by_nationa...

I'm all for working on your passionate ideas, creating something of value, building a valuable startup -- but come on, let's not erode the basics and ignore the foundation of the building in hopes of getting to the top floor fast.

It is foolish to take a few examples of outliers and think of it as a pattern in general.

Also, with a sample size of only 292, I find it hard to believe you could precisely determine what made them a billionaire. In fact, for all they measured, you could probably find 100 people of each who shared all of the same characteristics and are not billionaires.

Your conclusion does not follow from the data.

http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

Warning Sign I7: Confusing Correlation with Causation

Also, and this point has been brought up many times in these comments, a number of the billionares began their work at a time when college degrees did not matter as much.

It seems to me that most of them had a safety net - their parents.

I paid my bills, lived frugally (but happily) and basically just...lived on less than I made?

So, were these last few traits something my parents graciously bestowed upon me? Sadly, no.

My parents were frugal to a point, but not cheap. Budgeting wasn't something I really learned the concept of in depth, until I went out into the cold. Avoiding credit wasn't something my parents did, though they never abused it or amassed huge amounts of debt, and could always pay everything off (I didn't know or care about this at the time).

The thing my parents gave me was a longing for independence, success, and the knowledge that if there is ever something I need to learn, nothing stops me from learning it.

Sometimes, no matter which route a person chooses, they will succeed just because of their willpower, hardwork, sacrifice and perseverance.

Consequently I think money is wasted on studies like this, each individual finds their own path to success, even if similar.

so maybe it's better to compare degree_rate and billionaire_rate ... if #degree-holders grow by 10%/annum while #billionaires grow by 2%/annum then college alone cannot possibly be responsible for billionaire

ok, i'll say it ... college is overrated, over time degrees worth less due to supply/demand

I think the dropout # is more important than the "never went to college". Because those are the people who saw success early on.