Bill Gates: The Entrepreneur
I received an email where the sender wrote: ”I want to be an entrepreneur but my parents want me to go to college. I told them that entrepreneurs like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, are all college drop-outs. They do NOT need college to make a lot of money but my parents did not agree. Do you think an entrepreneur need a college education? Please advise.”
Answer: Do you know what an Entrepreneur is? By definition, it is “Someone who has possession of unique knowledge and recognizes the business opportunity to transfer that knowledge into new product and assumes accountability and risks for it”. Let us look into this definition more careful. First, the entrepreneur must have a unique knowledge. What do you think that knowledge come from? Is the person born with that or did he learn it from somewhere? Second, have you ever think about business opportunity? Opportunity is NOT something happens often but a rare occasion and it is only happened when someone is ready for it. Many people confused between opportunity and luck but luck has nothing to do with that. If you are NOT ready, opportunity will NEVER come because you do not even know what it is. If you agree with my definition then let’s us look at your entrepreneur hero: Mr. Bill Gates.
When they were high school students, Bill Gates and Paul Allen have “Sneaked” into University of Washington’s computer classes to learn programming. They even used “Fake” student identification cards to borrow computer books from library. They “hacked” into university computer to write programs. Eventually, they got caught, but a professor saw the passion to learn computer from these 15 years old boys and allowed them to continue. He tutored both of them and allowed them to use university computer to write more programs. That explain why in the beginning, the two founders of Microsoft already had possession of computer knowledge even they did NOT attend college. (they were still in 9th grade).
Eventually Bill Gates graduated high school and went to study laws at Harvard (His father is a Lawyer and wanted him to follow this career) but Bill’s passion for computer was strong so he kept following the technology trends. One day Paul Allen showed him an article about a computer called Altair (It is a package of components for engineers to assemble). Because this computer has no software, Bill and Paul decided to write software for it (Business opportunity) but Altair company did not want to buy it. Eventually Bill and Paul had to created their own company to sell software for people who bought the Altair computer. To do that, Paul had to do most programming and Bill had to do most of the selling, which required him to travel. He decided to drop out of Harvard “temporarily” although his parents were not very happy about it. He used his saving money to travel to sell Altair software and assumed all the risks (That is his entrepreneur spirit). However, the Altair computer did not do well and Microsoft was also on the verge of bankruptcy then Bill heard that IBM also had a similar personal computer with no software. Bill Gates came to IBM and asked if he could write software for the PC. Because IBM is a hardware company, their managers did not care too much for software so they agreed to let the “unknown” company called Microsoft to write the operating software for it. You probably know the rest of the story.
People like Bill Gates and Paul Allen MAY NOT need college (They already have the knowledge, the passion, the motivation and willing to accept the risks). Today there is only one Bill Gates but there are million people who “Want to be Bill Gates”. They all want to have his money, his fame but did NOT care about the “Knowledge”, the “opportunity” or the “Risks” that Bill Gates also possesses. That is why there is NO another Bill Gates.
If you still want to be “Bill Gates”, you must start with what he started: Possess knowledge. Where do you get this kind of knowledge? In College, of course. My advice: Please study hard and stay in school. Having the technical knowledge will allow you to identify business opportunity and it ONLY comes when you are ready.
Today, software technology is a relatively new field. It is only over fifty years old, a very young field as compare to Civil engineering, Chemical engineering etc. Software has a lot of potential and more opportunities than any other fields. I think by choosing this field to study, you are making the right decision. I believe the future of this field is very promising with more new discoveries and more new opportunities.
To answer your question: Do entrepreneur need College education? My answer is: “Definitely Yes”. I will tell you more about why I say “Yes” in my next blog about your other hero: Steve Jobs.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
