I recently met with a young entrepreneur. Graduating from Yale with high honors in math, he had his choice of professional paths and employment opportunities. He chose to start his own company. Since this has become relatively commonplace, I was not surprised.
But, I was surprised by his answer to my question about why he chose this path.
I told him that in my generation there was a brain drain of our best and brightest to investment banking, management consulting, law, and medicine. I asked him if many of his Yale classmates were following these conventional paths to success. “Sure, some, but, that’s considered the easy way out, the less interesting thing to do, kind of like you couldn’t think of anything else.”
This young man was extremely nice and modest. In no way was he trying to put himself above others. But, his answer revealed that the formerly prestigious paths of the high level professions are now considered less prestigious by some than the path of the creators. He was hopeful that he could create work around his passion and, with some hope, get wealthy enough at a young age to avoid the trade-off of the previous generation: decades of ridiculously hard work for wealth later on in time.
This also led me to wonder: what were some factors that helped put this young man in position to create a new venture?
The answer was a mixture of skills, credentials, contacts, and work character.
In terms of his skills, among other areas, he had developed excellent writing abilities. In the new world of work, e-mail and other forms of written communication constitute a large percentage of communication. As a new entrepreneur seeking capital, new clients, business partners and so forth, he sent hundreds of e-mails a week, some quite lengthy, in an effort to get the word out about his company. That was why I agreed to meet with him. I was impressed by the quality of his written presentation.
In addition, his understanding of the numbers required to do well in his business was excellent and his general knowledge of business acquired mostly through reading, since he had no work experience, was outstanding.
Essentially, the three Rs’ – reading, writing and arithmetic – were developed at a high level. Sure, he was combining these abilities in a way that would seem foreign to most parents over a certain age but it turns out the fundamentals still matter very much.
In terms of credentials, “Yale” helps open doors to those who might provide capital, become clients or become partners. This is not snobbery. Rather, it reflects the simple truth that in a busy world, we need short hand to decide who to meet. Venture capitalists receive dozens of inquiries every day from would-be entrepreneurs looking for capital. Most VCs will say that the strength of the management team is the number one criteria they focus upon when prospecting a deal. Without an established reputation or work history, young entrepreneurs inspire little confidence and rarely even secure meetings.
But, I was surprised by his answer to my question about why he chose this path.
I told him that in my generation there was a brain drain of our best and brightest to investment banking, management consulting, law, and medicine. I asked him if many of his Yale classmates were following these conventional paths to success. “Sure, some, but, that’s considered the easy way out, the less interesting thing to do, kind of like you couldn’t think of anything else.”
This young man was extremely nice and modest. In no way was he trying to put himself above others. But, his answer revealed that the formerly prestigious paths of the high level professions are now considered less prestigious by some than the path of the creators. He was hopeful that he could create work around his passion and, with some hope, get wealthy enough at a young age to avoid the trade-off of the previous generation: decades of ridiculously hard work for wealth later on in time.
This also led me to wonder: what were some factors that helped put this young man in position to create a new venture?
The answer was a mixture of skills, credentials, contacts, and work character.
In terms of his skills, among other areas, he had developed excellent writing abilities. In the new world of work, e-mail and other forms of written communication constitute a large percentage of communication. As a new entrepreneur seeking capital, new clients, business partners and so forth, he sent hundreds of e-mails a week, some quite lengthy, in an effort to get the word out about his company. That was why I agreed to meet with him. I was impressed by the quality of his written presentation.
In addition, his understanding of the numbers required to do well in his business was excellent and his general knowledge of business acquired mostly through reading, since he had no work experience, was outstanding.
Essentially, the three Rs’ – reading, writing and arithmetic – were developed at a high level. Sure, he was combining these abilities in a way that would seem foreign to most parents over a certain age but it turns out the fundamentals still matter very much.
In terms of credentials, “Yale” helps open doors to those who might provide capital, become clients or become partners. This is not snobbery. Rather, it reflects the simple truth that in a busy world, we need short hand to decide who to meet. Venture capitalists receive dozens of inquiries every day from would-be entrepreneurs looking for capital. Most VCs will say that the strength of the management team is the number one criteria they focus upon when prospecting a deal. Without an established reputation or work history, young entrepreneurs inspire little confidence and rarely even secure meetings.