Andy Raynor - Beyond the Brief
Andy Raynor's blog
Is Education Bad for Entrepreneurs?
I don’t want you to get down to the nearest school and invest your life savings in anyone wearing a pointy hat. I didn’t say “It helps to be stupid”.....but I do doubt that normal education breeds entrepreneurship.
And some education makes entrepreneurs less likely, not more.
Have a look at your clients. How many of them are educated to the limit and how many just got off their backside and did it? You already know the answer.
It’s like this. You have a wonderful writer in the family with a unique and developing style all of her own. You encourage her to go to the best university she can.
Where they teach her how to write like everyone else.
The professions can be good at knocking uniqueness out of people. For years now, we’ve taken exam qualifications as the yardstick for entrance. We might be creating a breed of people who are better at inventing reasons not to be original than they are at simply inventing.
A true story – I once wondered out loud why there weren’t more innovators in a business ready to bat the current leaders out into the long grass.
“Ah” said a bright young thing from the front row “We’re waiting for you give us the chance to be entrepreneurs”.
This is not a classroom. You do not need permission. Entrepreneurs do not wait.
And they need just enough education to perform, and no more.
Which is as much excuse as I need...read the small print on the sleeve and click on the image...and while you wait for the next song, turn the volume up full
Tell me what you think at andy@andypraynor.com
And see what's been said before by looking in the archive:
© Andy Raynor 2013