The Pmarca Guide to Career Planning, Part 2: Skills and Education

This reads like it was written by an HR representative at Google. I'm all for hard sciences and engineering but the most financially successful people I've met, been friends with, or worked for all have much different backgrounds than what he is describing. <p>He makes some other weird points. Economics and mathematics on their own are almost as useless as renaissance literature. (I know, I studied mathematics and economics)<p>"that's a great way to end up wanting to kill yourself when you hit 30 and you realize you still haven't done anything with your life."<p>I think he's a bit off base, here. This statement describes most of the 30 something engineers I've met who didn't work at the right startup and therefore didn't become rich. In contrast most liberal artsy people (do artists count, or does "liberal arts" mean people who majored in something like sociology?) seem reasonably content.

&#62; However, most of the people who have a huge impact on the world, outside of pure research and education, do not have PhD's. Draw from that whatever conclusion you think makes sense.<p>My conclusion is that Marc is being a bit sloppy here. Like 75% of the Y Combinator partners, I have a Ph.D.---and I think graduate (and, indeed, undergraduate) degrees are overrated. But given the small percentage of Ph.D.s even among technical people, it would be very surprising if <i>most</i> people having a high impact had them. More relevant is to ask whether Ph.D.s have relatively more impact than those without doctoral degrees. I don't know the answer, but I think it's a more interesting question.

&#62; Graduating with a technical degree is like heading out into the real world armed with an assault rifle instead of a dull knife. Don't miss that opportunity because of some fuzzy romanticized view of liberal arts broadening your horizons -- that's a great way to end up wanting to kill yourself when you hit 30 and you realize you still haven't done anything with your life.<p>Jesus, what a prick.

&#62; Graduating with a technical degree is like heading out into the real world armed with an assault rifle instead of a dull knife. Don't miss that opportunity because of some fuzzy romanticized view of liberal arts broadening your horizons -- that's a great way to end up wanting to kill yourself when you hit 30 and you realize you still haven't done anything with your life.<p>The problem with this entire line of thinking is that sure having an assault rifle is great but it doesn't do much good if you don't have any context to know where to point it.<p>Think of a technical skill or degree as the lens through which you focus a broader education. <p>The broader education allows you do apply technical solutions to non-technical problems and may even help you come up with that "big idea".<p>Look at PG, he seems to be doing pretty well on both accounts (undergrad liberal arts degree, grad technical degree).

I liked the first one, but I must say I'm a little disappointed that there is an assumption that college is a needed experience. Granted, it is in most cases, but - especially for entrepreneurs - it's not always the only way to success.

For what it's worth, very few of the very succesfull people I know have an engineering degree. Many have an MBA or JD, though.

&#62; a great way to end up wanting to kill yourself<p>This line is kinda interesting because the type-A personality he projects matches the profile of people who kill themselves when faced with a major setback.<p>I really cringe at his "change the world or you're a loser" pep talk bits. Chill out, man.<p>I think the life experience of guys like this makes their prognostications on the next 20 years useless. His formative career experiences happened during a historically unprecedented and continuous boom. Maybe I'm a paranoid nut, but severe and long lasting recessions and broken dreams are way more the norm than the last 20 years would indicate. The economy could blow up tomorrow and we could all be picking lettuce for the next eight years. Are you going to kill yourself over it?<p>Is it really worth uprooting from a region where you have deep ties for a career opportunity? Careers are ephemeral. Blood ties might keep you alive when the going gets rough.