Recently I stumbled upon article about next "bubble to burst" in USA - Higher Education and although author warned that "...article will piss off a lot of you" it wasn't that bad...
Well, until i read about Peter Thiel's initiative that will offer grants of up to $100,000 for kids to drop out of school. Immediate thought was that it's plain analogy to criminal world (ironically Google spellchecker didn't like name Thiel and offered to replace it with Thief :-).
In criminal world there always were and still are only few successful "entrepreneurs" (Untouchable Mafia Boss) who can claim success in terms of money, power, and above the law status. But for vast majority doing crime means jail time, and work in jail doesn't pay much if any. It's known fact that law abiding citizen in lifetime makes more money than average criminal. Yet there are still successful "marketing" campaigns (for example "get rich or die trying") to recruit new members of criminal world.
Isn't it similar to what co-founder of PayPal - Peter Thiel - is offering?
While lists of successful billionaire dropouts, entrepreneurs without college degree, mid-twenties millionaires, and extremely young entrepreneurs are quite impressive, let's not forget statistics. Vast majority of start-ups fail. At the same time person with college degree, in average, makes one extra million dollars in employment lifetime compared to person with just high school diploma.
So before you decide to not go to college or drop out of college and take bait from "venture thief", maybe you should also consider career in criminal world... your odds probably are same!
September 18th, 2011
Roman Havrylyak
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Thursday, September 1, 2011
How Old Grumpy Jew Beat Soviet Propaganda
Couple of weeks ago i read article about Nativ an "Israeli liaison organization that maintained contact with Jews living in the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War and encouraged aliyah, or immigration to Israel" (from Wikipedia). While reading i remembered 33 years old story that probably subconsciously programmed my journey to "Heaven on Earth".
In late 70's, year 1979 or very close, during summer school break i was visiting my grandma at village Veliki Komjati, Transcarpathia, Ukraine. One evening after playing soccer with neighbors i stopped by kitchen and overheard discussion between my relatives and neighbors.
One Jewish family from my village decided to immigrate to USA. At that time communist propaganda was very effective in convincing soviet citizens that USSR is "Heaven on Earth", the only country with true freedom and power of people. So desire to leave USSR was not just act of treason, but also risk that immigrants may like it outside "the wall". Therefore all communications, mainly letters or telegrams were censored (no phone or Internet back in 70's :-). As rest of Jewish families were very interested how is it in USA they come up with clever secret code. Upon arrival and settling down family would send letter with picture. If family members smiled on picture then immigration is good; if faces are serious then better stay in USSR.
Few months after departure came letter from Cleveland, Ohio with picture of whole family smiling. And not just smiling,- one of family member, let's call him Moisha as i don't recall his real name, was old and known as grumpiest person in the village,- but even he smiled. Rumors spread very quickly around Komjati that there is picture of Moisha smiling. Nobody could believe that that person can actually smile and almost every family in the village came to my neighbors to see the picture.
Effect of that picture was so big that within couple years there were almost no Jewish family left in Veliki Komjati, all migrated.
Somewhere at this point my aunt Slavka noticed me eavesdropping adult conversation, got scared and yelled at adults "Holy Mother of God, are you out of your mind to talk such things in front of a kid!?"
I was sent to bed with order to forget all i heard...
Sometime later in school there was political lesson about traitors who left USSR, lived in poverty in New York, and after couple of years were crying and begging at USSR embassy to take them back to socialist society... I wanted to ask "If it's so bad why people who never smiled in USSR are starting to smile in USA?", but aunt's scared order kept me quiet. And it was good decision cause telling above story back in USSR would be qualified as anti-soviet propaganda and might be even prosecuted.
I didn't see picture with smiling Moisha nor i knew him personally, but i got clear image of magical country, United States of America, that makes even grumpiest people laughing out loud.
26 years later, in 2005, i landed in Chicago airport with my fresh H1B visa and got my chance to experience Heaven on Earth. On my 1st picture i was smiling...
Now, after 6 years in US, i'm often in a bitter mood, but somewhere deep inside i hope that there will be chance to switch to LOL-mode and influence other people lives like Old Grumpy Jew affected mine and other villagers of Veliki Komjati more then 30 years ago!
September 1st, 2011
Roman Havrylyak
In late 70's, year 1979 or very close, during summer school break i was visiting my grandma at village Veliki Komjati, Transcarpathia, Ukraine. One evening after playing soccer with neighbors i stopped by kitchen and overheard discussion between my relatives and neighbors.
One Jewish family from my village decided to immigrate to USA. At that time communist propaganda was very effective in convincing soviet citizens that USSR is "Heaven on Earth", the only country with true freedom and power of people. So desire to leave USSR was not just act of treason, but also risk that immigrants may like it outside "the wall". Therefore all communications, mainly letters or telegrams were censored (no phone or Internet back in 70's :-). As rest of Jewish families were very interested how is it in USA they come up with clever secret code. Upon arrival and settling down family would send letter with picture. If family members smiled on picture then immigration is good; if faces are serious then better stay in USSR.
Few months after departure came letter from Cleveland, Ohio with picture of whole family smiling. And not just smiling,- one of family member, let's call him Moisha as i don't recall his real name, was old and known as grumpiest person in the village,- but even he smiled. Rumors spread very quickly around Komjati that there is picture of Moisha smiling. Nobody could believe that that person can actually smile and almost every family in the village came to my neighbors to see the picture.
Effect of that picture was so big that within couple years there were almost no Jewish family left in Veliki Komjati, all migrated.
Somewhere at this point my aunt Slavka noticed me eavesdropping adult conversation, got scared and yelled at adults "Holy Mother of God, are you out of your mind to talk such things in front of a kid!?"
I was sent to bed with order to forget all i heard...
Sometime later in school there was political lesson about traitors who left USSR, lived in poverty in New York, and after couple of years were crying and begging at USSR embassy to take them back to socialist society... I wanted to ask "If it's so bad why people who never smiled in USSR are starting to smile in USA?", but aunt's scared order kept me quiet. And it was good decision cause telling above story back in USSR would be qualified as anti-soviet propaganda and might be even prosecuted.
I didn't see picture with smiling Moisha nor i knew him personally, but i got clear image of magical country, United States of America, that makes even grumpiest people laughing out loud.
26 years later, in 2005, i landed in Chicago airport with my fresh H1B visa and got my chance to experience Heaven on Earth. On my 1st picture i was smiling...
Now, after 6 years in US, i'm often in a bitter mood, but somewhere deep inside i hope that there will be chance to switch to LOL-mode and influence other people lives like Old Grumpy Jew affected mine and other villagers of Veliki Komjati more then 30 years ago!
September 1st, 2011
Roman Havrylyak
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