Over Thanksgiving dinner, I talked with my neighbor, a smart high school senior, about where he wanted to go to college. But before we got too far in, he told me a number that shocked me: $20,000. That’s the cost of instate tuition, fees, books, and dorms at the University of Wisconsin. When I attended in 2004 for my freshman year, it was ~$14,000. He’s clearly smart enough to do the work at Wisconsin, but he’s doing the mental calculus and see’s he’ll save $20,000 over two years and end up with the same degree if he goes to a cheaper school and transfers in. That’s a tough decision.
Like most 17 year olds, he’s not sure what he wants to do in life. And there’s nothing wrong with that. At 27 I still don’t know what I want to do in life. But to go to school to figure out what he wants is now going to cost at least $80,000 for four years at a good school. If he were to go to a private school it’d cost upwards of $200,000 for four years. And with many students taking 5 years, he’s at between $100,000 and $250,000 in the hole as a 22 year old. That’s absolute insanity. Especially since college doesn’t guarantee you a job that will let you pay that debt back anytime soon anymore.
We are going through the biggest economic shift since 1750 when the industrial revolution reshaped our economies. That change took 100+ years. We’re 40 years into the new revolution today. Software and robots are eating the world. In the 1970s, low skilled jobs mainly filled by urban minorities were eliminated. Our economy didn’t need them anymore. Shamefully, pretty much nobody cared. In the 90s, computers, robots and outsourcing began to eliminate manufacturing jobs. People started to take notice, but many figured it was progress. We’re moving to a knowledge economy.
But that all changed in 2007-2009. That recession eliminated the last vestiges of the old manufacturing systems, leaning out the workforce via increased efficiency from robots and software. But the big change was the elimination of millions of middle management white collar jobs. Businesses fired managers, lawyers, spreadsheet jockeys and more. By 2012, businesses realized that they got along just fine with fewer managers. Most of those jobs are gone forever.
So what should someone like my 17 year old neighbor do? Where will the jobs be in our new economy? Is it even worth going to college? What majors are worth taking? And if you do go to college, how do you prepare yourself for success after graduation?
Our economy will have jobs in four major areas:
High paid, high skill jobs like engineers, doctors, scientists, designers, technicians, health care, computer programmers
High paid, high skill trade jobs like plumbers, electricians, mechanics, welders
Working for yourself, with pay ranging from minimum wage to high wages
Low paid, low skill service jobs in restaurants, hotels, stores
We’ll still have manufacturing, finance, business people and lawyers, but each company will need progressively fewer and fewer jobs as these jobs get mechanized and we squeeze out more efficiency from each worker and pay goes down because of increased competition.
If you go to college, go to a good public university and study hard sciences like engineering, physics, biology, astronomy, computer science, medicine, dentistry, nursing or elder care. But what if you don’t like any of those?
If you absolutely don’t like any of the hard sciences or health care and you plan on graduating with a poli sci, english, art history, women’s studies, psychology, journalism or another liberal arts degree, the days of waltzing through university, getting a degree and then getting a good job are over. And going to law school is not the fallback it once was: 55% of 2011 law grads didn’t have law related jobs and 28% were unemployed one year after graduation. You either need to be in the top 5% of all of these degree seekers in smarts, work ethic and perseverance or you need to develop skills outside the classroom. Preferably both.
You need to set yourself apart from the vast majority of your peers who will coast through college and emerge with a piece of paper, a pile of debt and no skills other than binge drinking. Get out in the world. Volunteer. Intern. Work. Start a small business. Take online classes outside of your university. Read books that you’re interested in. Meet people, join clubs.
But don’t do things to check a list or get the credentials like you did in high school. Do it because you think you might like it or to develop skills. The biggest (only?) benefit of taking a liberal arts degree today is that you’ll be exposed to smart, educated, motivated people who you can connect with for life as friends, business contacts, smart people to start a business. Don’t underestimate these benefits.
For example, if you think you might want to be an attorney, take a law and society class. Contact local attorneys to ask to shadow them for a day or intern in their office. You might love it, but you also might hate it. Finding out what you don’t like is just as important as what you actually do like. Learn to communicate, to write, to problem solve, to earn money on your own. To make things happen. Work hard. Figure out how to relate to people. Kill off any vestiges of shyness or timidity. Find something that you truly love to do. Because coming out with a paper degree guarantees you nothing but a huge pile of debt and a wasted four (or more) years of lost earning and learning potential. And avoid small, private, liberal arts colleges like the plague unless absolutely necessary.
Quick, what’s the biggest challenge facing entrepreneurs starting their businesses outside of San Francisco and NYC?
Most entrepreneurs outside of these cities will say “MONEY! We need investors!” That’s a huge cop out. I don’t care where you’re living, if you have a good idea with traction, you’ll get funding. I’ve been in NYC all week and am more convinced than ever that the biggest challenge of being outside of NYC or San Francisco is the lack of good feedback. People to challenge your idea and call bullshit on what you’re doing to eventually make you better.
I’ve started companies in Madison, WI and Santiago, Chile, two aspiring startup hubs that have experienced massive growth in their entrepreneurial ecosystems. They’re both on their way toward building themselves into the next Boulder or Austin. But in both places smart, experienced entrepreneurs, investors and attorneys cheered us on. “Great idea!” they’d say with enthusiasm. “We’ll use your product!” They loved it! We were going to be huge!
A few months after we launched Entrustet, we headed to NYC, SF and Chicago to see what other people thought. My first meeting in San Francisco was with Marcus Nelson. I remember this meeting as if it were yesterday. We sat down to chat and within 5 minutes it was clear things were different. We were going to have to up our game if we wanted to play at that level. I stammered through lunch and probably came off like the novice I was. When I left, I went across to a coffee shop in Embarcadero and quickly wrote out the questions he’d asked that I hadn’t been able to answer and sent them off to my cofounder.
We chatted that night, got the answers together and used his questions to hone our idea. Our meetings got better, but the same general pattern persisted our entire trip. We got probing questions and demands for real data. We improved each day. By the time we got back home, we’d gotten more feedback in two weeks of travel than in a year in Madison. I had the exact same experience when I moved to Chile as part of the Startup Chile program. Lots of cheerleaders, not many probing questions.
So what’s the difference? First, there’s clearly more savvy people with entrepreneurial experience in NYC and San Francisco than in aspiring startup hubs like Madison or Santiago. But what about the otherwise savvy entrepreneurs and investors who are in aspiring startup hubs? Why do many of them turn into cheerleaders rather than give good feedback? Why don’t they ask hard, probing questions or call bullshit on ideas that have been done hundreds of times?
I think it’s because they are trying to foster entrepreneurship in their city. They’re worried that if they’re overly critical of a startup, the founder will get discouraged and the aspiring startup hub will lose an entrepreneur. Or they’re worried about coming off as an asshole. Non startup hubs don’t have the culture of brutal, honest feedback that entrepreneurs need to really create great companies.
I’ve seen smart people in both cities “entrepreneurially grin fuck” aspiring entrepreneurs: they listen to a pitch, smile, say great idea and don’t offer constructive feedback. I was pitched the exact same mobile travel app by four different teams within a 2 month period in both Santiago and Madison. In both places, smart entrepreneurs I respect smiled and said good job and told them to keep going. Instead of doing the heavy lifting of forcing the entrepreneur to answer tough questions, they smiled and encouraged them.
That’s doing these entrepreneurs and their cities such a disservice. By not exposing entrepreneurs to criticism and blunt feedback, they’re just condemning these entrepreneurs to fail and fail more slowly. By not challenging entrepreneurs, asking tough questions and risking coming off as an asshole, you’re actually hurting your city and its entrepreneurs. You’re not fostering entrepreneurship in your city by telling everyone that their idea is good. I wish I’d gotten Marcus and others’ feedback in month 2 of our business, not month 9.
Now this doesn’t mean you should tell every entrepreneur in a non startup hub that their idea sucks or that they shouldn’t be working on it. That’s just being an asshole and doesn’t help. If you really want to help an aspiring entrepreneur, don’t sit on your Mount Olympus of knowledge, smile and tell them it’s a good idea, keep going. Challenge them with some variation of the following questions:
Who is your competition and how are you different/better?
How will you get users?
Have you talked to potential customers to validate that they actually want your product?
How will you make money?
Make them think. Make them defend their idea. Make them be specific. And encourage them to come back with the answers. Anything less is just hurting entrepreneurs, not to mention your city. Help create that direct feedback culture in your city. That’s the biggest thing missing from aspiring startup hubs. And if you’re an entrepreneur living outside of San Francisco and NYC? Buy a plane ticket and head to the coasts a few times a year. You can take advantage of the pluses about starting up outside of SF and NYC, like easier access to talent, lower cost of living etc, while still getting the feedback you need to be successful.
What do you think? Do you see this same phenomenon in your non-startup hub? Do you agree? How can we change it?
Last month, I headed off to Colombia’s Caribbean coast with six Chilean friends for some much needed vacation. Through a fluke of holidays, my friends could take a two week trip with only 5 days off from their jobs. Colombia is in the middle of some amazing changes: double digit economic growth, improved safety everywhere except near the Panama and Venezuela borders. Construction’s everywhere. Lots of tourism. No noticeable violence. Less corruption. If you have a chance, it’s worth checking out.
Many people in the US think that South American countries have similar cultures, but it can’t be farther from the truth. Colombians are very different from Chileans. They’re open, easygoing, cheerful, love to talk. They seem less classist. They’re happy to smile at you on the street and generally give good customer service. They seem to be more entrepreneurial: I never once saw anyone begging for money, they were always trying to sell something, whether it was a piece of gum, tours, trinkets or even prostitutes.
Our flight to Cartagena stopped in Bogotá at 10pm and had a layover until 630am and we had no intention of staying cooped up in the airport all night. Nearly every Colombian directed us to Andres Carne de Res for dinner and drinks. Like all taxis in Colombia, our minibus taxi didn’t have a meter and we negotiated our rate ahead of time. After 30 minutes, we arrived at the restaurant.
Andres Carne de Res
Andres Carne de Res is a loud, festive mix between a restaurant and a dance club. While the food wasn’t that great and the prices were high, we had a great time just soaking in the atmosphere. After being in Chile for almost a year, it was a welcome experience. People were open, they smiled at you. The servers told jokes. People were happy and they showed it. They were drinking aguardiente and rum. They were dancing on the tables, in the aisles, everywhere. This was one of the only restaurants where we actually got exactly what we ordered. On the Caribbean coast, we’d be lucky to receive 50% of what we ordred. Many times there were substitutions (meat for chicken, fish for beef etc) without any comments.
After we left, we walked around a bit. It was a bit eerie. Not many people were out at 2am on a Thursday, as peoples get up and go to bed earlier than in Chile. I don’t know if this is common or not, but we had to walk through metal detectors and get patted down to get into nearly all of the bars and restaurants in this area of the city. We had a good time, but were exhausted as we got back to the airport to fly to Cartagena. I’m going to have to go back to actually visit Bogota in the future.
Cartagena
Cartagena city walls
I slept the entire flight from Bogota to Cartagena and still was wearing my heavy shirt and winter coat from Chilean winter as I got off the plane in Cartagena. BAM! I was slammed by a wall of heat and humidity that I couldn’t escape until I got back to Chile. It was 80 degrees with 90% humidity at 8am! The first thing I noticed was music. It’s everywhere. On the streets, in taxis, in restaurants. It floats from houses, pulses from plazas. You don’t need headphones because Colombia has a soundtrack. And it’s not just any type of music. It’s happy, up beat, danceable. There’s almost always at least one person dancing and it wasn’t uncommon to walk past a pharmacy or convenience store and see the employees having an impromptu dance party.
We got to our hostel, Media Luna, and decided to explore. Cartagena is an old port city that oozes history. Starting in the 1500s, the Spanish used it as the main port to export gold, silver and other commodities from their South American colonies and built fortresses and city walls to defend it. Throughout the years it was held by the Spanish, by British pirates, attacked by the french, used as a slave trading outpost and much more. Walking through the brightly painted buildings behind the city walls, you can imagine pirates coming ashore to party or the Spanish counting their gold.
Media Luna
There’s not much to do in Cartagena other than walk around. The center is dominated by upscale boutique hotels, high end restaurants and expensive international chain stores and the other parts are dominated by backpackers hostels. Our hostel was a beautifully converted mansion with a small swimming pool. It was full of backpackers, didn’t have locks on the rooms, but served our purposes. If you want to party, stay here. If not, stay somewhere else.
I wasn’t that big of a fan of the city, as the beaches weren’t that nice, but the worst part were the sex and drug tourists and the prevalence of those willing to fulfill those vices. We ran into a middle aged Italian who destroyed a shop and wreaked havoc at our hostel as he was high out of his mind on cocaine. Two Australians who were sharing a prostitute for the week. Middle aged British guys negotiating prostitute prices on the street. Pickpockets, prostitutes and drug dealers seemed to be everywhere. And it was HOT. We had a great time with our fellow tourists, but it just wasn’t my style. After a few days, it was time to move on to Tayrona.
Colombians playing beach baseball with bottle caps and sticks. Not soccer.
Tayrona National Park
We got up at 5am to catch a bus to Tayrona National Park. I slept the entire four hour drive and when I got off the bus, we were at the entrance to the park in the middle of nowhere. There were a few shops and we had breakfast, including a lulo juice which ended up being my favorite. We entered the park and started to walk. It was about and hour and half on a path through humid rainforrest, then onto pristine white sand beaches on the Caribbean. By the time I got to camp, I looked like I’d been in a downpour. We had the option of staying in tents, hammocks or in a cabin with fans, full bathrooms and electricity. Since there were 7 of us and low season, it wasn’t that much more expensive than getting 7 tents. It was the right choice. The tents were miserable because the humid air didn’t move at night and we were subjected to intense tropical downpours for about 2 hours per day. Plus the bugs. Anyone who slept outside got eaten alive.
Colombians are much more formal than Chileans and that point was hammered home when we saw three Colombian friends from Medellin interacting with each other. One guy was annoyed at the other and said “no me gusta la manera en que usted me esta tratando,” the English equivalent would be “sir, I don’t like the way you are treating me.” All my Chilean friends looked at each other, expecting his friend to give him shit for being so formal, but just said “lo siento, tiene razón” “I’m sorry, you’re right.” In Chile or the US, friends would never dream of saying that to each other. They’d say say some variation of “dude stop being a dick.” We saw other examples of Colombia formality that was really different from what I’ve gotten used to in Chile.
The crew in Tayrona
Tayrona was tied for my favorite part of the trip. The national park consists of multiple pristine white sand beaches with warm tropical water. There are a few small shacks that serve food, but otherwise it’s not developed. They had all of the fresh fruit you could imagine in tropical sizes that were 4x what I’m used to seeing. I learned to love 75 cent Aguila beers, arepas, plantains and tropical fruit juice. There were lots of tourists from all over the world, but the park is big enough that you have privacy, time to think, hang out, swim. At one of the beaches fish would just swim up and nibble at your feet. The whole park was incredibly relaxing. I did absolutely nothing but swim and eat amazing fish and fruit for three days. Although I could have stayed longer, we decided to move onto Taganga the next day.
Taganga
We took a 45 minute speedboat ride over to Taganga from Tayrona and arrived in a small beachside town of about ~1000. It had a really strange vibe: lots of tourists and lots of locals selling pretty much anything to tourists. We stayed at what seemed to be the only place with hot water, AC and a pool. It was a nice place run by Israelis who went on their trip after their military service and decided to stay. The place is clearly catered to other Israelis, of which there are tons in Taganga, but we were welcomed with open arms.
Taganga
The places has an even stranger vibe than the town itself, with drugged out Israelis listening to psytrance at all hours of the day. The entire town has an eerie feel straight out of a movie that I can’t quite describe. Between little kids trying to sell us drugs and women, to local girls speaking Hebrew, English and other languages to “cater” to the travelers and foreigners of all nationalities there to party, it just wasn’t my scene. I also witnessed the phenomenon of local girls who didn’t consider themselves prostitutes but would charge guys “if they thought the guys were willing to pay.” Really strange. It just didn’t sit right with me, but we had a great time because we took day trips to incredible beaches each day instead of staying in the city.
Isla Baru
We took the death bus back to Cartagena from Taganga. I call it the death bus because Colombians are crazy drivers. They don’t obey road signs, lane markers or right of way. I consider myself a good driver, but I would have had problems on this “highway.” The road went to a single lane from time to time and drivers steamed ahead, blaring their horn to warn anyone in their way. People passed without warning. Our driver dozed off multiple times with sheer drop offs to the right only to pull back at the last moment. I put my life in the hands of the driver and just went to sleep.
We made it to Cartagena and then onto Isla Baru. The place was packed. Completely full of people. We were led to believe it was a small beach with no electricity, hammocks, a place to get away. As we arrived, I couldn’t imagine staying 3 days with all those people. Luckily, they were all day trippers. As they left, maybe only 100 people stayed overnight. This was my favorite part of the trip. No electricity besides some generators, fresh fish, white sand beaches, warm water, shooting stars. It was perfect. We rented a cabin with real beds, but quickly realized that was a mistake. If you were out of the breeze, it was unbearable. I slept in a hammock and then under the stars covered in mosquito nets and was perfect. My friends who stayed in the beds slept horribly and were eaten alive. The only drawback were the locals who tried to sell you everything. Aggressively. It got tiresome, but if you ignored them, they went away.
Beach soccer
We saw sex tourism on display yet again. A middle aged Mexican who the locals claimed was a narco had rented the best room above a restaurant for himself and his entourage, which consisted of three body guards and four Colombian prostitutes. He’d drink 2 liters of Absolut per day and had trouble walking anytime after about 10am. He’d force his help to bring his mattress right to the waters edge so he could “hang out” with his prostitutes under the cover of darkness. He bitched out one of his bodyguards worse than I’ve ever heard anyone bitch anyone out in my life. This guy and the bugs were the only downside of Isla Baru.
The coolest part of Isla Baru happened at night. After a day of relaxing on the beach, we bought a few bottles of rum and drank under the stars. One of the locals came over and told us we had to check ou the water at night. He wouldn’t tell us why. We dubiously walked over to the water and splashed around. The water lit up. There’s an algae in the water that when irritated, light up like little LEDs. It was incredibly beautiful. No lights, glowing water and shooting stars. Perfect. I tried again sober the next night and it was just as cool.
Our last day, we took a tiny boat around the islands and ended up on a tiny island where we docked in a bay. We had fresh caught crabs and lobsters right from the bay, drinking fresh drinks out of coconuts. If I ever go back, I’d spend more time on these small islands than on the more developed beaches and cities.
Overall, I had an amazing time. I didn’t bring a working phone, had internet for about three days total and just let my mind go blank. It was great to get closer to a group of friends who I’ve know for awhile. I met some incredible people and really liked the Colombians I met. I’d love to go back to to check out Bogota and Medellin. I have a feeling the country is going to be one the stars of South America over the next few decades.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote,”every man I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from him.” It’s one of my favorite quotes. This post is the sixth in a series that highlight some of the awesome people I’ve had the privilege to learn from.
When I came back to Chile in January, I could understand 90% of Spanish, but my speaking was a mess. I talked slow, my vocab was poor, I messed up all sorts of grammar. Many times I had things to say, but the conversation would pass me by as I was trying to formulate what I wanted to say. Sometimes I’d just think to myself “fuck it, it’s not worth bumbling through this sentence, I’m just not gonna bother.”
I came back to Chile in January looking for a job that forced me to speak Spanish and allowed me to learn about how business worked in other countries. Other people had tried to help me learn Spanish previously and some people were genuinely helpful, (thanks guys!). But the vast majority, while well intentioned, were terrible teachers.
Most people who tried to help would say some variation of “but Nate, it’s ser algo and estar algo! they’re different!” both of which mean to be in English. They’d pronounce ser and estar slowly and with extra emphasis as if I’d be able to infer the different meanings if they were spoken slower and with more emphasis. Others would listen to my butchered accent and say, but why do you say “pedro de valdivia that way? it’s easier to say it with the correct accent like this!” and they’d say it over and over. Uhm yea, if it were easier for me to say it correctly, I’d sure as hell be doing it! These differences and pronunciations were self evident to native speakers, but not for me. It was like when my Dad tried to teach me to drive when I was 15. I couldn’t turn the car on. He’d forgotten to tell me to depress the clutch because it was second nature to him. He’d been driving for 35 years!
Others would tell me things like “I met this foreigner and she’s only been her for seven months and she speaks well, you should be able to do the same!” Thanks. Not helping. Others would just make the correct sound over and over, expecting me to be able to say it correctly. Didn’t help. So frustrating.
When I started my job, our bosses gave Cami the thankless job of correcting my blog posts, emails, tweets and helping me with my Spanish when I had questions. Cami is the type of person who who never makes spelling mistakes in emails and uses correct grammar and punctuation in tweets and text messages. Texts! Bad grammar and mangled Spanish seem to physically harm her. She’d noticeably cringe when I spoke poorly as if someone stuck her with a pin or insulted a family member.
She was incredible at finding examples and creating little rules that would help me learn. She also pointed out words that I said wrong that nobody else bothered to correct. I’d gone almost a year and a half saying “instantamente” instead of “instantáneamente” and nobody ever said a thing. I’d probably said it wrong 100s of times. Instead of just editing my work and sending me the corrected draft, we’d read through my drafts and I’d correct the mistakes myself with her help.
She’d come up with rules, and show me examples of what I was getting wrong. Things like “the H is silent at beginnings of words” instead of just correcting me and leaving me in the dark as to why. There were rules about what words have accents and what ones don’t, order of words. And many many more. But the part that helped the most was her ability to put herself in my shoes.
I still have lots of trouble with my accent. But Cami figured out that it was easiest to find sounds in English that were near the sounds in Spanish. So to correctly pronounce Juan, I’d say “who-on” in English a few times to get the right sounds, then keep being able to say it correctly. Or saying an English D to make the R sound. If I say “nadanja” for “naranja” it comes out perfectly and Spanish speakers think I’ve said the R correctly. It’s because the English D and Spanish R are similar mouth movements. Unfortunately there’s no similarity for the RR. So I’m still screwed there.
Through being forced to help me and the desire to work less if I made fewer errors, along with a severe aversion to poor grammar and a gift of teaching more geared toward little kids, Cami Carreño taught me Spanish. I still have a long way to go to truly fix all of my mistakes and be really fluent, but I’ve come a long way. A huge part of that progress is thanks to Cami.
