According to a new analysis, if you want to run a tech company, you shouldn’t drop out of college.
Look at media reports of top tech CEOs and you’ll see a whole lot of pixels and column inches devoted to very successful college drop-outs. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is the latest in a list of high-profile tech executives who have opted not to finish their degrees.
The list includes industry greats Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. An ambitious young person keen to run their own tech company one day might look at that line up of highly accomplished non-graduates and conclude they can safely follow the urging of college skeptics such as PayPal founder Peter Thiel and drop out.
Not so fast, writes Carolyn Duffy Marsan recently for ComputerWorld New Zealand. After combing through the educational background on 50 top tech industry CEOs she came to a very different conclusion. She writes:
“The myth of the brilliant Ivy League student who starts a business in his dorm room, drops out of school, and goes on to run a successful high-tech start-up for many decades to come is essentially just that: a myth. Despite a few high-profile exceptions–such as Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates–the vast majority of CEOs running successful US high-tech firms have college degrees, and more than half have at least one graduate degree.”
…to read this article in full, visit leading US small business resource, Inc.