The top university factor is probably bias. I mean those schools are good and lots of good people come from them, but people from those schools are also more likely to get funding and other things like top tier employees and co-founders. That's going to create an outsized effect.
Solo founders being older makes a lot of sense because to be successful as a solo founder you need a deeper skill set. You really need to be both technical and business/sales until you can get far enough to hire for the ones you are weaker on.
> people from those schools are also more likely to get funding and other things like top tier employees and co-founders
You are also likely to come from a family with stable finances, and might be able to afford not working on something tied to a direct income for a while.
That may be true for Stanford and Harvard (I don’t know), but a wild majority of MIT students were there on financial aid. There was clearly a spectrum, but overwhelmingly the people at MIT did not seem to be well off.
As someone from a mid tier state school, I've definitely found that people from elite schools work harder and produce more consistently good work. I think this is just anti-elitism cope.
Do they work harder because they attended elite schools or did they attend elite schools because they worked harder?
It’s all multipliers: a bias existing doesn’t mean that there isn’t also a factor that relates to the quality of the education. You’re more likely to attend a top university if you have good contacts, good finances, and good test scoring already — those are also probable significant factors to whether you’ll successfully start a company. Location also matters–and at least in Europe–VCs, engineering staff, and top-tier universities are often in the same area.
None of that is dismissive of the schools’ qualities, but all those factors contribute to a bias that likely exaggerates the reader’s perception thereof.
I don't disagree. I don't think the quality of education at Harvard is that different from other schools. But the quality of the people that get into these schools is way higher. Yes having a good upbringing makes you more likely to get into a good school, and as a result of your upbringing you're more disciplined, educated, and capable. The good have already been sorted from the bad before they've even been accepted into a a school.
The top university factor is probably bias. I mean those schools are good and lots of good people come from them, but people from those schools are also more likely to get funding and other things like top tier employees and co-founders. That's going to create an outsized effect.
Solo founders being older makes a lot of sense because to be successful as a solo founder you need a deeper skill set. You really need to be both technical and business/sales until you can get far enough to hire for the ones you are weaker on.