I've talked to many of my classes about the strange tradition the schools maintain: The idea that you wait until finishing school before you do something amazing, change the world or make a million dollars. Why wait to finish school? Here's 3 dropouts that did quite well:
The Harvard Crimson called him "Harvard's most successful dropout" — the rest of the world just calls him ridiculously rich. For more than a decade, Bill Gates has been one of the wealthiest, if not the wealthiest, men in the world. The son of an attorney and a schoolteacher, Gates entered Harvard in the fall of 1973, only to drop out two years later to found Microsoft with childhood friend Paul Allen. In 2007, more than thirty years after he left Harvard, the co-founder of Microsoft would finally receive his degree (an honorary doctorate) from his alma mater. At the commencement, Gates said, "I'm a bad influence. That's why I was invited to speak at your graduation. If I had spoken at your orientation, fewer of you might be here today."
The Mac, the iPod, heck, even Buzz Lightyear probably wouldn't have existed had Steve Jobs stayed in school. The future wizard of One Infinite Loop dropped out of Reed College after just six months because of the undue financial strain it placed on his working-class parents' savings. He would go on to eventually found Apple, NeXT Computer and Pixar, becoming an instrumental force in shaping the landscape of modern culture. However, his brief tenure in academia was not for naught. In a 2005 commencement speech he gave at Stanford University, Jobs credited a calligraphy class he took at Reed College with forming the basis for the typography used in the first Macintosh computer.
Most college students use their dorm rooms to sleep, study, or do things their parents probably don't want to know about. Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in his. Originally meant only for Harvard students, the popular social networking site quickly spread to the rest of the Ivies and other colleges across the nation. As Facebook's popularity exploded, Zuckerberg packed up his bags and relocated the fledgling company to Palo Alto, California, forever leaving behind Harvard's hallowed halls. So far, the decision has worked out pretty well for the twenty-something. According to Forbes, Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in the world, with a 2010 net worth of $4 billion.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBut isn't there a problem with this? How can anyone of us develop the next big thing when the next big thing could never exist.
ReplyDeleteWe (meaning my generation) will never have the capability let alone opportunity to develop something like Microsoft or apple. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs arguably made the biggest developments the world will ever see in computing. It would be impossible and wrong to say that I could go out there and do exactly the same thing.
The economics simply just don't fit with it and support it. They are huge huge companies that dominate the market...remember Gateway??? Where did they go? Do you even remember them? It is impossible to compete with these companies.
You might say "Sure you can't create something like Microsoft or Apple, how about the next big 'Facebook'". I don't think that is achievable either, all the internet safety etc is pushing the market away from being involved in sites like these. And OK, the world never imagined FB and so you could say "you don't know what the next big thing is". But do we as a generation even have the intelligence or audacity to come up with something like that? People these days in "Modern Culture" are too obsessed with themselves and money and gaming to actually put their intelligence to use in society and create something worth while...
The biggest computer development period was probably the 80s and sure we are still developing things, but not at the same rate. It leaves me questioning whether there is actually something no-one has thought of which is the next best thing? Does it really exist?
Not to be a pessimist but I think I have a valid point. We can't go out there and create major and astounding companies that do x, y and z because x, y and z already exist. We simply don't have the capacity for it in the world as we know it. We missed the boom in technology and sure we can go out there and develop things but we can never develop things so ground breaking as the ones in this article.