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<p>Uh, no, I believe you’ve drawn a dichotomy that doesn’t really exist. </p>
<p>You talk about losers and winners, implying that those who drop out of college to launch a new idea that fails are ‘losers’. But why so? If your idea fails, so what? Then you just go back to school. Sure, you probably lost some money and some time. Big deal. The experience that you got from trying a new idea, even it fails, is almost certainly worth it because now you know what doesn’t work, and that will make you smarter in whatever it is you end up doing. </p>
<p>In the case of Bill Gates, let’s say that Microsoft had never landed any of the PC programming language contracts that got the company off the ground. So what? Gates would have just gone back to Harvard. At least he would have tried. </p>
<p>What I am saying is this. If you’re a student, and you already have an idea that you want to try, the ‘cost’ of doing so and failing is quite small. Honestly, what do you really lose? The worst thing that will happen to you is that you’ll be young and broke. Yet the fact is, most young people are broke.</p>
<p>I happen to know a bunch of guys who dropped out of MIT to start companies that failed. Now they’re all back at MIT. Heck, one of them was recently talking about dropping out again because he has another idea. I see nothing wrong with that.</p>