proponent
’95
MICHAEL ELLSBERG Beyond the Books After his op-ed appeared in The New York Times last fall, Michael Ellsberg ’95 found himself at the center of a growing controversy; he was even dubbed “reckless” because of what he had written. The subject of his piece? How college students aren’t learning the skills that they need to succeed in an entrepreneurial economy. Citing innovative and successful college dropouts Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg, Mr. Ellsberg says that the academic world produces professionals with degrees—lawyers, writers, professors—but not what the United States needs right now: start-up entrepreneurs, a.k.a. job creators. Start-up businesses are the “true engine of job creation in America,” Mr. Ellsberg maintains, and “our current educational system is acting as the brakes. Simply put, from kindergarten through undergraduate and grad school, you learn very few skills or attitudes that would ever help you start a business.” Creativity, sales, networking, and comfort with failure are all skills that college students can’t learn in a lecture hall; they are acquired, Mr. Ellsberg argues, in the real world. “Classroom skills may put you at an advantage in the formal market, but in the informal market, street-smart skills and real networking are infinitely more important.” Although Mr. Ellsberg pursued a traditional college education, graduating from Brown University, he found that his lack of “street smarts” led to a chaotic post-college life. “I went through the system and my 20s were a complete mess,” he said in an interview with the International Business Times. “Financially, emotionally, I was a mess. I think this is true now for many, many twenty-somethings. People are very lost and confused now when they get out of college, and I was one of them.” Mr. Ellsberg says he learned the most important lessons of his life outside of college, in the “real world.” His experience led him to write a book, The Education of Millionaires: It’s Not What You Think, and It’s Not Too Late, in which he expands upon the
80
Spring 2012
themes from his op-ed. The book is a guide to developing practical skills for success in an entrepreneurial economy and includes interviews with millionaires and billionaires who don’t have college degrees. A college education can be a valuable experience for many people, Mr. Ellsberg acknowledges. Unmotivated students may need the structure of a formal educational institution to guide them onto a career path. On the opposite end of the spectrum, students who want to become doctors or lawyers, for example, need the proper education and training that they can only find in an institution of higher education. However, he said to the IB Times, “I’m trying to promote job creation, and those are not the people who are creating jobs.” Mr. Ellsberg advocates for the government to promote creating a start-up business as a “worthy, respectable alternative” to academics. Like the successful entrepreneurs he highlights in The Education of Millionaires, young people should get out into the world and lead. “You don’t lead in a classroom, you lead out in the real world,” he said. “If you have the ambition and the desire to do things, you don’t need this college stamp of approval.”
More about The Education of Millionaires and Mr. Ellsberg’s work at ellsberg.com