Steve Jobs In Praise of Dropping Out

atlacatl writes "Wired reports on Steve Jobs giving a graduation speech: 'Jobs, 50, said he attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon but dropped out after only eight months because it was too expensive for his working-class family. He said his real education started when he "dropped in" on whatever classes interested him -- including calligraphy.' The irony: that most students were graduating. I wouldn't invite him for a high school graduation. Imagine all the 'hard' work teachers, parents and guidance counselors put into brainwashing every kid that he/she must go to University." (Jobs was speaking to the graduates at Stanford University.)

Avoid ask.slashdot for a few days...

Ug... Job's touting dropping out will undoubtedly start a flurry of "ask.slashdot" questions similar to:

Posted by Michael in an alternate universe
from the Still-in-the-parents-basement dept.
hey d00dz, i wanna drop out like Steve Jobs did! i also wanna leet sysadmin job. i aint got no skoolin' or relevant experience. the job has to let me wear my floorscent green hair down to my ass and let me show my 130 tattoos. and don't forget the piercings in my eyebrows, nose, lips, tongue, septum and 2" holes in the ears. and it has to pay $100K a year or i aint geting outta bed and i'm 2 leet to start at the bottom and work my way up because I AM UNIQE!
The world owes me a living! so what do u /.ers do?

Thanks, Steve.

Re:Avoid ask.slashdot for a few days...

one man's insightful is another's flamebait.
Personally, think that many people are just resentful of the fact that intelligent people do not need to go to school to get ahead.

Re:Avoid ask.slashdot for a few days...

Remember that this speech was given to students graduating Stanford... not high school. Whether a degree is worthwhile, in the context of the audience, is moot.

The point of the speech is to encourage students to "ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING". Graduating isn't the top of the mountain, it's base camp. It's not an accomplishment unless they use it to propel themselves. blah blah blah. Potential is for losers.

Sure, a few people drop out because they are smart

...but a lot more drop out because they are stupid.

Re:Sure, a few people drop out because they are sm

Larry Ellison (Oracle CEO) gave at Yale University to the Graduating class of 2000. What follows is a transcript of the speech delivered by Ellison at Yale University last month:

"Graduates of Yale University, I apologize if you have endured this type of prologue before, but I want you to do something for me. Please, take a good look around you. Look at the classmate on your left. Look at the classmate on your right. Now, consider this: five years from now, 10 years from now, even 30 thirty years from now, odds are the person on your left is going to be a loser. The person on your right, meanwhile, will also be a loser. And you, in the middle? What can you expect? Loser. Loserhood. Loser Cum Laude.

In fact, as I look out before me today, I don't see a thousand hopes for a bright tomorrow. I don't see a thousand future leaders in a thousand industries. I see a thousand losers. You're upset. That's understandable.

After all, how can I, Lawrence "Larry" Ellison, college dropout, have the audacity to spout such heresy to the graduating class of one of the nation's most prestigious institutions? I'll tell you why. Because I, Lawrence "Larry" Ellison, second richest man on the planet, am a college dropout, and you are not. Because Bill Gates, richest man on the planet-for now anyway-is a college dropout, and you are not. Because Paul Allen, the third richest man on the planet, dropped out of college, and you did not. And for good measure, because Michael Dell, No. 9 on the list and moving up fast, is a college dropout, and you, yet again, are not.

Hmm ... you're very upset. That's understandable. So let me stroke your egos for a moment by pointing out, quite sincerely, that your diplomas were not attained in vain. Most of you, I imagine, have spent four to five years here, and in many ways what you've learned and endured will serve you well in the years ahead. You've established good work habits. You've established a network of people that will help you down the road. And you've established what will be lifelong relationships with the word "therapy." All that of is good. For in truth, you will need that network. You will need those strong work habits.

You will need that therapy. You will need them because you didn't drop out, and so you will never be among the richest people in the world. Oh sure, you may, perhaps, work your way up to #10 or #11, like Steve Ballmer. But then,I don't have to tell you who he really works for, do I?

And for the record, he dropped out of grad school. Bit of a late bloomer.

Finally, I realize that many of you, and hopefully by now most of you,are wondering, "Is there anything I can do? Is there any hope for me at all?" Actually, no. It's too late. You've absorbed too much, think you know too much. You're not 19 anymore. You have a built-in cap, and I'm not referring to the mortarboards on your heads.

Hmm ... you're really very upset. That's understandable.

So perhaps this would be a good time to bring up the silver lining. Not for you, Class of '00. You are a write-off, so I'll let you slink off to your pathetic $200,000-a-year jobs, where your checks will be signed by former classmates who dropped out two years ago.

Instead, I want to give hope to any underclassmen here today. I say to you, and I can't stress this enough:

LEAVE. Pack your things and your ideas and don't come back. Drop out. Start up. For I can tell you that a cap and gown will keep you down just as surely as these security guards dragging me off this stage are keeping me dow..."

(At this point The Oracle CEO was ushered off stage.)

Re:Sure, a few people drop out because they are sm

Nice, but it's an urban legend [snopes.com].

Re:Sure, a few people drop out because they are sm

Of course, your post completely ignores the real issue: That they shouldn't have gone to college in the first place.

The US has gotten so fixated on sending kids to college that we've lost sight of the reasons why we wanted them there in the first place. As a result, the quality of education has been declining, while the amount of debt our kids pile up before ever starting a job has been rising. And how many of those kids use their college degrees to do amazing things like sell real estate or become plumbers. i.e. What did that degree buy them other than a wad of debt?

That's not to say that education is a bad thing. But people always get the best bang out of an education when they know they want it. Sending them to school before they know what they want to know only devalues it for everyone. Teach your kids to wait until they're ready. Then they can be sure that they really want to take on a college education.

Here's the basic flaw in his speech.

He is a success story. He made a lot of money and is world famous.

Looking back on his life, there will be certain items that he deems to be "important".

Looking back on anyone's life will also yield certain "important" choices or events or whatever. Those are items that shaped your life.

But that does not mean that someone else can imitate those choices and get a similar life. As you noted, some drop out because they're smart, but more drop out because they aren't. It isn't the dropping out.

And I don't believe that Steve's "experience" with cheap college life and calligraphy would mean much if not for a certain Steve Wozniak.

Bah

I think Jobs' success is in spite of the fact that he dropped out of college, not because of it.

He also dropped acid in his younger days. That a good thing too??

Re:Bah

Actually LSD is a great stimulant(*). Good for unhindered creativity and cultivating an appreciation for the big picture. In other words, "Thinking different".

In fact, I'm suprised Mac OSX doesn't ship with a sheet of the stuff.

(* do not try this at home)

Re:Bah

He also dropped acid in his younger days. That a good thing too??

Well, that explains the original iMac.

Not Feynman.

Richard Feynman is mildly famous for having said that "I love to think and I don't want to screw
up the machine," electing to go with sensory deprivation instead of drugs to get a hallucinogenic experience going.

--grendel drago

Looks like sound advice....

...like "do not think that you, freshly-graduated students, are better than everyone else. It takes more than a degree to really stand out."

Sounds like good advice to me!

Just because Jobs dropped out...

...and it worked for him AND Gates dropped out of Harvard and it worked for him, doesn't mean that it OK for everyone to drop out.

In general University/College is a GOOD thing. However, some people's paths take them elsewhere.

--Mike

Re:Just because Jobs dropped out...

Neither Jobs nor Gates really made any great breakthroughs in science or engineering, either. Gates was a pretty good programmer, and Jobs had a friend who was a pretty clever hacker (i.e., Woz.) Gates had the connections and acumen, and Jobs had charm, a smart friend, and some cunning. Good for business. But frankly, I don't think either of them, or the other college-dropout-tech-millionaires, really go into the "great minds" category. Business success is about work, energy, networking, and leadership, things which are not the exclusive provenance of the university.

Good For Him

You know what? Good for him.

I don't think the point of his speech was that dropping out is cool. It was that hard work and determination are what you need to be successful.

Say what you want about Jobs, he's a gifted businessman who knows how to sell. He had the right product in the 70's at the absolute best time.

Your mileage, of course, will vary :).

I wouldn't follow Steve Jobs advice.

He cheated his friend and partner Steve Wozniak out of money before the early days of Apple.
And when Wozniak set up his own company in 1986, Jobs threatened Wozniak's suppliers against doing business with Wozniak.

Just because Jobs did something in his past doesn't mean that is a good path to follow.

Re:I wouldn't follow Steve Jobs advice.

It's true, Jobs cheated Woz out of some money. [wikipedia.org] Back in the day, before Apple, Woz wrote the first Breakout game. Jobs asked Woz if he could sell it and keep half the money; he took it to Nolan Bushnell and sold it to him for $5000. Jobs then went back to Woz, gave him $350, and said, "There's your half!"

Many years later, Woz (then rich and famous) was flying on a plane when he picked up a magazine and read the story for the first time; he reportedly wept when he read it.

I'll agree with what Steve says

I never finished college and it has yet to hurt me professionally, financially or emotionally (partly I didn't have the money, mostly I didn't really find it useful for my goals to bother coming up w/ the money - and I went to a good 4 year east coast school with an extremely good comp sci program).

If you're talented, smart, and *most importantly* not lazy, not having a degree doesn't matter in the big scheme of things. With those assets you're more than capable of working around and moving beyond the confines of the traditional 'system' most people end up dealing in (IMO, because they aren't talented enough, smart enough or lack the work ethic to do anything to change things).

Degrees are nice and they do make joining the higher class system (white collar?) easier, but IMO, a lot of people also use degrees as a crutch for rationalizing avoiding the need to do anything meaningful.

If you're talented, smart and actually enjoy hardwork, the world is your oyster. Persuing a degree may even be a distraction from you obtaining your purpose and potential.

$.02

Re:I'll agree with what Steve says

If you're talented, smart and actually enjoy hardwork, the world is your oyster. Persuing a degree may even be a distraction from you obtaining your purpose and potential.

Try doing real, novel science without a Ph.D. Sure, you can go into IT or even software engineering without a degree, but there's tons of interesting stuff that you simply won't be able to comprehend without years of school.

I mean, have you seen the cool toys physicists get to play with these days?! ;-)

Re:I'll agree with what Steve says

>If you're talented, smart and actually enjoy hardwork, the world is your oyster.

Um.. the same could be said if you are good-looking, born with rich parents and get along with everyone.

The point I think is that most people are not talented enough, smart enough, enjoy hardword enough, good-looking enough, have parents who are rich enough or get along with enough people and so need all the help they can get, including that university degree.

OP Misinterprets the Speech

To recap, more accurately: Steve said that he dropped out of college because it was too expensive, and it was the best thing that happened to him. He said that his "real education" didn't start until he took up classes again with a greater appreciation for their value in his life. He took calligraphy classes when peers were telling him that calligraphy had no relevance to career, but he gained a greater appreciation for elegance in ordinary things (sound familiar?). Etc.

This is not an anti-education message. In fact, it is a message strongly in favor of a liberal-arts education. In Steve's original college career, he was going through the motions -- going to college because that was the thing to do. When he started learning again, he was doing it out of a personal desire to learn, and with more genuine motivations. And he was taking classes to improve himself and his outlook, not just to get nuts-and-bolts information that would advance his career. Steve's saying that you have to invest yourself in learning and appreciate its value where you might not expect it.

Those of you who are oversimplifying this into a "street smarts" vs. "book smarts" thing have watched too much of The Apprentice. This was a speech about the personal value of learning and the importance of an open mind and broad perspective.

proportional fonts: not-so-subtle revisionism?

According to one audience member quoted on Macintouch [macintouch.com], Jobs "wondered aloud if computers today would have proportional fonts had he not sat in on that calligraphy course".

If the late Jef Raskin had anything to do with it, they would; he recalls lobbying for versatile bitmapped displays and not hard-wired fixed width character generators, against Jobs and Wozniak.

Sadly Jef is no longer with us to defend the account, but he left a detailed history, The Mac and Me [chac.org]:

In my 1967 thesis, "The Quick Draw Graphics System," I took issue with the display architecture then in vogue. ... There were only a few CRT terminals at the Penn State computer center, and these could display only letters and symbols, usually in green or white on a black background. Hamstrung by specialized electronics -- in particular a circuit called a "character generator" -- that permitted no other use, they could not display graphics. One display at the center could draw thin, spidery lines on its large screen. With it you could do drawings that now seem crude, annotated by child-like stick-figure lettering.

In this milieu my thesis was radical in suggesting that computer displays should be graphics- rather than character-based. I argued that, by considering characters as just a particular kind of graphics, we could produce whatever fonts we wished, and mix text and drawings with the same freedom as on the drawn or printed page.

[Later, at Apple...]

The other Steve, Steve Jobs, was a delight to talk to about less technical aspects of computers. His enthusiasm and business orientation were exciting. They were just starting on the design of the Apple II, and I tried to convince them that they should employ bit-mapped graphics and not have a character generator, but Woz thought that software couldn't handle the character generation task fast enough and Steve Jobs didn't understand why I thought it so important.

I had a different vision of what a microcomputer should be like, and PARC's programmers and my own work had convinced me that software could do the job. I tried to convince Woz by working out the code to put bit-mapped characters on the screen and calculating timings by counting cycles, but the Steves were not open to the idea.

The concepts I espoused were far from the mainstream of computer design and for all their mold-breaking thinking, Steve and Steve were very strongly conditioned by the minicomputers they had seen.

Later in the essay, Raskin notes that Jobs was eventually persuaded to green-light the Apple II's "high res" mode. Only Steve himself knows if an enthusiasm for calligraphy influenced the decision... but even had he not, proportional fonts were already being designed into the expensive research workstations of the day, where the hardware budget was orders of magnitude greater than an Apple II's.

Re:Guess what

Education != College.

College can provide a wonderful education, if the student is ready for it. I started college when I was 16, but I was too immature even though the "test scores" said otherwise. I needed to grow up, get life experiences. I did these things (though I didn't realize it at the time), and graduated when I was 24.

Had I gotten through school by the time I was 19, which was the pace I was heading, I would have had a college degree and a job I would have hated. Probably would have been found hanging by a rope by now. Instead, I love what I do, and life only gets better by the day.

Summary: College is education for those ready to receive it. Same goes for life in general.

Re:school sucks

Bullshit. Go to a research university, find a professor you like, and start doing interesting stuff. I'm just at a public university, but the classes are pretty good, and the work I do on the side helps me learn huge amounts of stuff about my field.

You'll get out as much as you put in. If all you ever do is take engineering classes and do the required minimum work, you'll have wasted a great opportunity.