Tucked into the lobby of the Marina Theater, dozens of 20-somethings mingle as they would before a school dance, leeching on to whomever they happen to know and searching for common ground with those they don’t. They’re gathered for the inaugural “dropout graduation” organized by Z Fellows, a weeklong boot camp for tech entrepreneurs.
Soon, the Zoomers trickle upstairs into the theater, where commencement speakers impart wisdom that the assembly of ambitious quitters can fall back on throughout their professional lives.
“Our natural instinct as children is to question everything: authority, tradition, the status quo,” Z Fellows Founder Cory Levy, a dropout himself, said. “But somehow, when it comes to college, we stop questioning it. This is a room full of exceptions.”
Around the country, the importance of college is being questioned. But perhaps nowhere more than in San Francisco, where many tech companies simply don’t care if you have a college degree. Meanwhile, college graduates struggle to field job offers; bosses say those who do make it into the office — remote or otherwise — are often unprofessional; and AI is getting better at tasks previously reserved for white-collar workers.
Haz Hubble, one of the Z Fellows “graduates,” dropped out sooner than most, quitting high school as a freshman.
“Honestly, fuck school,” the 26-year-old founder of Pally said. “If you’re smart and high-agency, you don’t need to go to school.”
Yet the attendees know that society’s default remains college, especially if you come from wealth and have been successful academically. Thus, the common sentiment throughout the event was an ironic one: dropping out is hard.
“It’s really lonely, very isolating,” said Ali Debow, who co-organized the event and founded a photo-sharing app called Swsh. “A lot of people have lost relationships with their family and their friends during this time, and I just want to say, I see you and I hear you.”
Debow’s parents were ambivalent when she dropped out of NYU to focus on building her company. Like many in attendance, Debow brought her parents on board once they witnessed her success.
“If I go to school, I will waste my time,” said Ali Rastegar, 20, who dropped out of UC Berkeley to run his company, FairSentry. Rastegar’s mother, an immigrant from Iran who joined him at the event, said meeting the other dropouts made her feel better about her son’s decision.
“I trust him,” she said.
Max Mullen, who cofounded Instacart, gave the night’s longest speech before being bombarded by Zoomers in hoodies, vests, or gowns as they begged for his advice. Mullen reiterated the common themes: time is to be spent well, dreams are good, people who doubt you should be ignored, victory requires patience, you are only as good as the people with whom you surround yourself, and the best learning happens on the job rather than in the classroom.
“Be all in on your best idea,” said Mullen, who graduated from college but supports enterprising dropouts.
All the speakers declared that abandoning college is not an accomplishment in and of itself but rather the beginning of a journey marked by risk and discovery.
In speaking with dropouts and friends and family who joined them, it became clear that the important distinction is not between those who stay in college and those who drop out, but rather between those who are comfortable charting their own course and those who aren’t. After all, some professions, such as medicine, require degrees.
Many who drop out of college aren’t pitching potential investors but are rather holed up in their parents’ basement, bagging groceries at Whole Foods, and neglecting whatever hidden purpose these commencement speakers guarantee life might have in store for them.
“When you’re in high school and college, I think it sometimes feels like a zero-sum game,” Tanay Tandon, founder of Commure, said in a speech. “Things are graded on curves, and you’re either the smartest and you win, or you’re not and you lose. That’s not what the real world is like at all. Everyone can win.”
