Interesting set of facts that are pretty well known. And the last link about Larry Ellison commencement speech at Yale is FAKE! Read NOT REAL! Though funny and has been spammed around the net for at least the last few years. Here's my take on this education vs dropping out. Sure, go ahead and dropout and not study if you want to ONLY if you think you will succeed WILDLY without it. The average person is NOT Bill Gate or Dell or Ellison or Einstein,etc. Education is merely a hedge so to speak. It's safe and boring and will help you get a job and some respectablity. Then again, it depends what you want to do. If you want to go into business and doing your own things, education might not be that useful since streetsmarts is better. But if you are into law, medicine, teaching, scientific research, architecture, or basically any normal profession then an education is almost mandatory. No one will let you operate on patients if you didn't go to medical school and residence,etc. haha. I mean look at all these startups and dotcoms during the boom. There are students from Stanford, MIT, Harvard and even 1st yr MBAs from harvard b-school dropping out to do these startups. Guess what? The boom times are over and many of them are ENROLLING again back to school and at least 1-2yrs behind these classmates and feeling bad because these inflated titles of CEOs or VPs of a small 5 person startup that was funded with millions of VCs $$ in the heyday are gone... So, back to basics. But if they did succeed and cash out before the dotocm burst then it was worth it. Like the 2 college dropouts from Cornell who formed TheGlobe.com whose IPO went up 600%(!!!) the FIRST DAY! of course, they made out like bandits by cashing out at least a $100M each at ripe old age of like 22-23. Of course, the only thing I profited was being a money manager and buying up TheGlobe.com oversubscribe(10X!!) IPOs shares from the likes of GS,CSFB,Merills who are now under investigation. haha. If you can happen to chance on a opportunity of a lifetime like then then GO FOR IT! I wished I had and droppout of my Ivy League school and went for it! hehe. But I didn't. Just finished school and went to standard finance jobs and got the relatively pathetic 6figures salary instead of the millions or hundreds of millions like these other guys. Oh well. But my education is a hedge. In this downturn when all these dotcoms were bursting what did these guys do? They went back to school to get the degrees while I continue on my career path,etc. They had to reset their career counter so to speak. It's all personal really. So, don't shoot down education too much yet at the same time don't put education on such a high pedestal either. It all depends what you want out of life is the bottomline! I think the same goes to trading and education. For some, it's NOT necessary for others it's mandatory. If you are a clerk on the Chicago pits, you dont' need a hs degree right?? And eventually those guys move up into trader position and if they are good can make tons of money. Now on the hand, if you want to work for an ib or a big investment/money management firm then a top school degree is almost a requisite to get in the door. But that doesn't necesarrily reflect future performance. It's merely a barrier to entry. And I think in prop trading as well, education might or might not be that useful. But perhaps it could be useful in formulating and testing valid strategy. trader99
I like to comment some things from those links: Jim Clark........self-made billionaire American businessman; founder of "Netscape"; first Internet billionaire (17, U.S. Navy) Jim Clark DID NOT drop out of anything! HE was a supernerd who got his Phds from Stanford in computer science and was a professor there for a while before he decided to form Netscape and all. So, I'm not sure if all those listings are correct. trader99
Even if they are, where is the counterpoint website that shows how many graduated from college AND went on to be rich and famous?
(For the record I am a college dropout ) Don't know why some try to compare the advantages of a Wall St job with being a "daytrader" . I don't think the real reason for trading is money, not for me. The odds of making very good money are better working in an IB. So is it better to be an Ibanker? If status and money are your only motivation, yes. Some actors and NFL players make much more than Ibankers so they must be smarter if you follow some poster's reasoning . Also in the US, education is so expensive that many people just can't afford it. Jim Clarke had to enroll in the Navy to get the education he couldn't afford otherwise. This is a big long term problem for the country BTW. Almost anybody with a lot of money can get degrees, I am sure many universities will do all they can to keep you(ever heard of grade inflation?). I suspect government financed systems similar to Europe, India 's are more selective.
I didn't bother reading this whole thread because it seems like a chore so maybe I am missing something, but I got my degree from SFSU for about $2k/yr. IMO nobody can complain that they couldn't go to college because of lack of money. Lack of interest or motivation are the only excuses.
As some one said--theres a millions ways to make money in the market but they're equally hard to find. Some ways of trading or making a living off the market may require a formal education--like working on Wall street, or maybe some quant type style, but I think that for most trading styles formal education is not essential. What is typically relevant? Experience. A degree of mastery over your personal psyche. A smattering of intelligence. Formal education won't make you more intelligent. It won't teach you to control your fear and greed. High IQ is not going to help you get ahead of your personality either. I should add that that years ago I administered thousand of IQ and personality tests so I have a bit of an edge on sizing people up. Given equal degrees of self mastery, those with the better brains should do better because the mental CPU can process, analyze, and recall more info. I know that I'm not that smart simply because I can't track a large number of stocks. A degree and experience in psych I don't think helped either. Losing money and figuring out why was the biggest help. "It's not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." ---Charles Darwin
FWIW, my education is a late 70s early 80s liberal arts degree and a law degree neither of which has been of any use in my trading. I am continually hampered by poor basic math and computer skills as well as a lack of discipline. In a very, very few instances I might pick up something in a bankruptcy or corporate law related issue ahead of the crowd but that is a rare exception. In prior endeavor, I was an overachiever due to hard work and brutal hours to make up for the head start that solid or white shoe academic credentials would have given me. I have tried to apply some of that gusto to learning trading with little success. For example, I always admired the success I saw some Ivy MBAs and economic backgrounds awarded with so I recently walked into the Dartmouth Bookstore, bought and read the first year booklist for their Tuck business school. While I can absorb this stuff I guess and maybe understand what's behind some key economic indicators or basic corporate management, I don't see that it has helped with my trading. Geo.
Yes, I would agree! Education, though expensive in the U.S., is still very accessible! I went to a top Ivy Leage school that costed around $20K/yr but now has risen to close to $30K/yr but due to scholarships, grants, working part-time etc. I made it through though I still owe not a small amount of money to my alma mater! But it was all doable. There was no way that my parents(very poor) could avoid to send me to my Ivy League school. A lot of people on this board confused and think that all these Ivy Leaguers are from rich, snobby families. That is definitely NOT the case! Perhaps, it was more so the case in the 1950s-1960s, but now Ivy Leagues are from ALL socio-economics backgrounds. If you are good enough to get in, then the Financial Aid office will work very hard with you to make a package that is workable for you. They select people by merit (maybe except for George W. Bush! haha). America is a very fair place. It's a meritocracy for the most part. If the Ivy League school that I went didn't give me an almost free ride, there's no way in hell my family could afford to send me there. For example, a friend of mine from hs who dropped out and got his GED, then went to a junior college which at the time was only like $6/unit!! That's incredibly cheap! Then transfer to UC Berkeley and now doing very well. So, I think it's just a matter of determination and wanting it. If you dont' want it then don't do it. Don't go to school. NO one is forcing you. BUT don't look down or scarf at people who actually tried the school thing and all the work that came with studying and juggling work at the same time! And I agree that school doesn't equal smartness or intelligence. It's just another avenue of learning. But don't say school is too expensive.. There are plenty of school and even jr college offering an OK education at dirt cheap prices. And for some people who started families early, they can still go back to night school to get degrees. So, there's really no reason why one can't get an education in the U.S. IF you want to! The thing is a lot of people don't want to! Then they make excuses about expenses,etc. trader99
Every knows that website would be long, and unsurprising. Its the unconventional and successful that capture our imaginations.