(a) Most people either don't have the energy to start a startup, or don't want the stress. For them jobs are right.

(b) For the earliest employees, it's more like being a founder than having a normal job.

This is one question only you can answer. In my opinion, if you have to ask, then you should stay in school for the time being.

In "A Student's Guide to Startups," Paul Graham writes:

"...Our official policy now is only to fund undergrads we can't talk out of [leaving college]. And frankly, if you're not certain, you should wait. It's not as if all the opportunities to start companies are going to be gone if you don't do it now."

As a greybeard in the making (36), my instinct is to dismiss comments like Mark's as inexperience and naivety. Those sorts of attitudes make me uncomfortable and edgy.

After some reflection, I'm forced to conclude that although such ageism is annoying, is naive, is arrogant, it's also beautiful. It is exactly that arrogance, the sure knowledge that the "establishment" is full of it and needs to be rescued by youth, that has rescued us, many times. Its from that arrogance that the energy to drive change comes.

There are many examples. A mantra of the 60s was to never trust anyone over 30. Kurt Cobain didn't exactly work with a lot of elder statesmen of the music world. Bertold Brecht spent his 20s in active rejection of all drama that had come before. And the art world is chock full of young artists declaring that a new age had arrived -- Basquiat probably never even talked to anyone under 30, except Andy Warhol, who was at least pretending to be a teenager.

None of which makes Mark's words easier for me to hear, but I can't bring myself to dismiss the attitude. It's fuel for radical new ideas. It's the nuclear reactor of society.

Great speech. My only comment is on the idea that we will look back on professionals as being like serfs. As Paul mentioned earlier, what is driving people into the service of others is a combination of social status, risk avoidance, and the need for "structure."

I don't think risk avoidance and need for structure will ever change. The real question is whether our conceptions of social status will change. So I've been writing a lot recently about how organizations and institutions exploit people's need for social status in order to secure cheap labor and make money.

The most obvious example is how WoW literally allows you to "level up." Even though objectively you are just spending 12 hours a day clicking on pictures of digital rats on a computer screen, qualitatively it's designed to make you feel like a hero. Everyone wants to be a hero in real life, but most people are just too lazy or untalented or risk adverse. It's not fair, but that's the way it is. Organizations have figured out how to tap into people's need to "be the hero" while extracting cheap labor (or purchases) from them.

A good example is when I was learning to play the trumpet. Learning to play a musical instrument is a very slow and continuous process. If my trumpet teacher were to have said, "ok, today you are level one trumpet. ok, now you're level two trumpet. etc." I think most people could figure out it's a scam. Improving at trumpet is a continuous function, not something that happens in levels.

The thing is, when people say, "ok, you're level one at education, you're level three at business." then no one realizes they are being exploited. In general, reality is very continuous. Whenever someone tries to represent a phenomena as something you can "level up" in, chances are they are trying to fuck you, take your money, or both.

Until people realize this is happening, professionalism will never go away. Instead people are obsessed with "climbing the ladder." Thing is, climbing the ladder benefits the people at the top, not the bottom. The average person doesn't even realize this.

I think in order for this mentality to end, two things are needed:

1) People currently view social status as a function of what people with money and power think of you. People need to instead view social status a function of your ability to MSPW.

2) We need new forms of social signaling that take this into account. Currently people identify themselves through college credentials, brand name clothes, etc. I think social signaling DOES have an important economic role to play, however, we need new forms of social signaling based around MSPW.

I regretted not taking a year off from school. I think the timing depends more on the stage of your business, rather than when you're graduating.

This should come as no surprise. All Startups that are using "legitimate" means to get data (e.g. via APIs) are at risk. The API provider can block you at any time. Here are other examples: - In May 2006, Ebay blocked Rapleaf's attempt at making seller reputations portable. Rapleaf was using Ebay's API. - In 1999, UPS and FedEx blocked all companies that were using their APIs to display and transact best shipping methods. All of those startups were using UPS and FedEx API. This happened again in Jan 2006, when UPS blocked www.simpletracking.com and once again in late 2006, when UPS and FedEx blocked startup www.RedRoller.com Their website is still up, but without UPS and FedEx in there, it's evident that they are dying. Once again, RedRoller was using FedEx and UPS API. - Startups using Google API are subject to the same issue..Google will block you as soon as you come in their radar screen. ...so if you are planning to use APIs, figure out your plan B in advance!

aka "limited life experience + overgeneralization = advice"

justin.tv's audio was pretty useless...

I do wish that the organizers had an 'official' video guy, with a tap into the house audio system, and uploaded the videos afterwards. maybe next year?

I agree with this guy. Mitch's talk was well put together and thoughtful. I think building a diverse team (assuming everybody is highly capable of course) wins most of the time.

I'm still a freshman at university. Is taking time off to pursue a startup a good idea? If somebody has a certain amount of dedication, it's possible to leave school, succeed in a startup, come back to school and graduate. What's holding us back?

"what is driving people into the service of others is a combination of ..."

Capital has historically been a big factor in that equation as well. A factory worker couldn't very well take his machine around to different factories, whereas a mechanic probably has his own set of tools. Those of us in the computer field are fortunate that, at this point in time, capital requirements are very, very low. In other fields, though, large amounts of money are needed to be able to get off the ground. Who knows what the future will bring... less capital needs or more?

Incidentally, as much as I would have liked to see it, I couldn't take watching a bouncy image of some guy's ear next to a tiny Paul Graham. It would be great if they provided video of the whole thing for those of us not able to be there.

Mitch's talk was one of the ones I got the most out of. He seems like an all-round great guy - I have no doubt it'd be a hugely enjoyable experience to work with him.

True, I forgot about that. I'm assuming you're familiar with Toffler and Drucker, but recently Yochai Benkler has added a lot to this theory. In the intro to The Wealth of Networks, he says that the declining cost of capital has three effects:

1) People can do more by themselves.

2) People can do more in loose association with others.

3) People can do more in informal organizations that operate outside the market sphere.

The idea being that if you get 100m in investment to start a steel mill, you need to earn 100m back just to break even so you need these very rigid systems in place to maximize profit. However, when you're business only costs 10,000 to start you can harness the power of informal systems and volunteers and crowd wisdom, etc. The perfect example of this would be Wikipedia. Because it costs so little to run, it can be run by informally organized volunteers and is free to operate as a non-profit.

Anyway it's definitely not a beach read, but it's one of those books where if you take a year or two to fully grok the ideas within then you'll be in a stronger position to MSPW.

So, how did the recruiting go?

Facebook is a product. Lotus is a business.

Facebook doesn't need to keep innovating and re-imagining itself. It's designed to do one thing and it already does that quite well. All Zuckerberg needs to do to continue milking his cash cow is to keep the product fresh and trendy. This means hiring the kind of young and trendy people who his product targets.

Lotus, on the other hand, is a business. And as such they need to constantly innovate to survive. That means finding new problems in new markets and delivering new products to new people. As such they need all the diversity they can get.

If Facebook wants to become a business, they'll need diversity too. If they're content to keep milking the cash cow they already have, I'd say Zuckerberg's strategy is sound.