The Successful Under-Schooled

by John Glaser



This TED talk by Cameron Herold talks about how entrepreneurs - some of the most productive members of society - don't fit well into the current traditional academic culture because the structure and norms aren't conducive to the environment in which entrepreneurs thrive. Some of today's most successful people, he claims, suffer from bipolar disorder, ADHD, et al, and are actually under-schooled.

On a related note, Caterina Fake recently wrote about how she almost went to get a PhD in poetry, but instead founded the very successful photo-sharing site Flickr. Her post is titled "Want to become an entrepreneur? Drop out of college." She says, similarly:

College works on the factory model, and is in many ways not suited to training entrepreneurs.

I think these types of ideas about the limits of higher education and the status quo under which these institutions operate, say quite a lot about the future of pre-career academic enrollment.