That’s exactly what my D did. She specifically chose a college in the city in which she wanted to live and wound up working there for three years after graduation…as a CPA for one of the Big 4. Her colleagues in her start class included those from much higher-ranked schools than hers, but it didn’t matter – they all had the same starting salaries (and her opportunities for internship and employment appear to have been equal to theirs.)
Her university was not one you normally hear discussed on CC but is well-known in her field and in the city in which she lived.
So yes. - if a startup seems like a good bet and the student can afford to take the risk-- by all means they should do so – but certainly the parent shouldn’t be investing big bucks for an elite school education for their offspring with the future goal of “work at a startup” in mind.
(Year ago I put out a resume and got a recruiting call from a startup. I asked what they paid, and they said that everyone “worked for equity.” I replied, “I’m sorry, I only work for money” and that was the end of that. I hadn’t heard of the company before then, and haven’t heard of them since.)
^^^ @Calmom sorry to disagree with you here. The facts you post are true but not only is working at (or founding) a startup one of the few ways to strike it big, believe it or not working at startups that fail can be excellent stepping stones. In the valley there is a culture of it and it really isn’t a stigma to work at a startup that fails. You get to meet lots of other young, smart, motivated people as well, and with so much fast growth you can advance rapidly through the fruit-fly lifespan.
If you are high enough, you can also meet investors and VCs that can be very helpful in your future endeavors.
For instance, one failed startup I worked with a few years ago was “aqui-hired” by Google and the entire company still works there in really great positions. This was after they burned $25mil in funding and had gross revenues of about $1.98. (the first number is real, the $1.98 is hyperbolic).
What’s more heartbreaking to me than the fast failures are the “solid double” successes where the rank and file who worked their tails off end up with worthless paper options because they have been diluted from round after round and caught behind preferences. The VCs (and sometimes the original founders) walk away with all the money.
90% sounds about right if you look at companies that at least got a series A round from VCs. If you included angel funded companies or companies still in the garage stage, I would expect the number to be a lot higher.
Calmom is quoting from a respectable source. Many (possibly most) who do tech jobs are not into the business/making money part- they like doing the tech stuff. There is a difference between those who think business/make money… and many extremely smart people who like the intellectual challenges of the work.
Remember, there are plenty of people who are NOT into business, it just offers a place for them to work. The ability level/IQ et al of many doing the research to produce a product can be quite high- not to be confused with the majority who do more mundane work (eg programming does not equal software development/engineering- different terms used by different companies). It’s a good thing research isn’t confined to universities- the private sectors makes many advances.
So- do not equate moneymaking/running a company (or being top management) with top/good careers. Business savvy/smarts are not valued by everyone.
From what I have seen, school prestige is pretty far down on recruiting by startups. Early stage ones tend to recruit experienced people, and often through founders’ or other existing employees’ knowledge that someone has the needed skills (i.e. high end talent known as such in a way that looks like nepotism).
I get that. I am talking about the tech stuff. All the employees now do only the tech stuff at Google, so the startup was an excellent stepping stone for them, despite its spectacular failure.