**A Conversation with Gary Vaynerchuk**

In this conversation, Gary Vaynerchuk shares his experiences and insights on taking a break from college to pursue his passion for software development. He recounts how he took a semester off from Oakton Community College and then continued his education at Harvard.

Gary's experience was very different from Bill Gates', who dropped out of Harvard after two years. Gary, however, found that he could continue his education without the burden of formal schooling. He states, "I find that part actually really fascinating and that's also what he did, permanently." Gary believes that people often view dropping out of college as a huge decision, but it doesn't have to be an either-or situation.

Gary shares his own story of how he took a semester off to test the waters. He explains, "I was like okay what do I know, I know the skill of software development, where do I have more leverage and teaching other people how to become software developers because I had done it myself." Gary's approach was to identify areas where he could add value, such as teaching others how to develop software. He had already gained significant experience in this field, having made a six-figure income at the age of 21.

Gary emphasizes that dropping out of college doesn't have to mean giving up on education altogether. Instead, it can be an opportunity to take a break and reassess one's goals. He encourages readers to consider alternatives, such as taking a semester off or exploring online courses. Gary notes, "You never expect someone like me would end up going back and finishing, but if I had been unrealistic in the business hadn't worked out, I could have."

Gary's message is clear: it's not an all-or-nothing situation when it comes to education. By taking a break or exploring alternative paths, individuals can test their interests and passions without making a permanent commitment. Gary concludes by saying, "My parting words to you are if you are considering dropping out of college or stopping College, uh and if you're not right, if you're already out of college, uh and you're doing a job and you're like yeah I want to become a software developer first of all you don't need a degree."

**Gary's Experience with Harvard**

Gary shares his experience with Harvard University, where he was a part-time student. He recounts how the university was very generous and paid for his tuition during his time off. Gary states, "they were very generous, they um you know paid for my tuition at the time officially I went on leave and so you know if the company hadn't gone well uh Harvard's very generous about letting people come back."

Gary notes that he took a break from college to test the waters, but he also acknowledges that his decision was influenced by his success as an entrepreneur. He states, "I had done it myself I had done it very very successfully and I was making a six-figure income at the age of 21 right I was making over a hundred thousand dollars a year at 21." Gary's experience with Harvard taught him that he didn't need to be tied to a traditional education to succeed.

**Gary's Advice for Young Entrepreneurs**

Gary offers words of advice for young entrepreneurs who may be considering dropping out of college or exploring alternative paths. He emphasizes the importance of taking calculated risks and being willing to learn from failure. Gary states, "it could be your backup plan and there's nothing wrong with that right Bill Gates has done it um I'm nowhere near as successful as Bill Gates but I myself have also done that and it turned out well."

Gary encourages readers to think outside the box and explore different opportunities. He notes, "the world doesn't end if you don't have a college degree." Gary believes that education is not a one-size-fits-all solution and that there are many alternative paths to success.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, Gary Vaynerchuk's conversation offers valuable insights for young entrepreneurs who may be considering dropping out of college or exploring alternative paths. By sharing his own experiences and advice, Gary encourages readers to take calculated risks and be willing to learn from failure. Whether you're in college or already established in your career, Gary's message is clear: education is not the only path to success, and there are many ways to achieve your goals without a traditional degree.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthere's no need even to have a college degree a lot of you keep asking me do you need a college degree to become a successful web developer software developer a full stack developer and in this video we're gonna take not my word but elon's word and see what he has to say about the subject with that said smash the like button so this video goes out to as many people as possible and with that said let's jump right into it there's no need even to have a college degree at all or even high school the wow that's a really bold statement no need to even have a college degree but let's see what he has to expound on that um I mean if somebody graduated from a great University that maybe in Indy that may be an indication that they will be capable of great things but so for me one of the big takes takeaways from this is graduating from a university might be a good indicator that you might be likely likely to succeed but it isn't and all be all great things but it's not necessarily the case you know if you look at um say people like Bill Gates or Larry Ellison Steve Jobs these guys didn't graduate from college that's true take a look at these people right that he mentioned Larry Page the founder of Google Bill Gates founder of Microsoft they did not actually graduate from college but watch what he actually says next I think that's important but if you had a chance to hire them of course that would be a good idea whoa Elon you're right about that if I had uh Bill Gates knocking on my door I think I would take him up on his offer so you know just looking just for evidence of exceptional ability looking for evidence for exceptional ability now let's see what he means when he says that of exceptional ability and if there's a track record of exceptional achievement then it's likely that that will continue into the future so Elon looks for a track record of exceptional ability okay so what does that mean for you well what that means for what that might mean for a software developer or somebody who wants to become a full stack developer is stop looking around for I need a piece of paper that's worth sixty thousand dollars I need this that's not what you actually need what you actually need is a solid skill set skills that you could show from your portfolio skills that you could show when you're on that job interview and skills you can use to actually get a job because when people bring you in that's mainly what they're looking for okay so for you it doesn't ultimately matter that much that you don't have a certification or you don't have a piece of paper now of course it depends what school or or sorry what job you're trying to get into if you're trying to become a data scientist there might require you to have a PhD but for Elon what he says is I want to see if you have a proven track record of exceptional ability and in my opinion the best way to show that you have exceptional ability is to show that by your skill set okay and also by a foundation of projects that you might have built now you might ask Elon but what if I do want to learn and I do want to educate myself what should I be working on because not all learning can be that bad right so what are the skills I should pick up when I want to actually improve my skill set and here's what Elon has to say to cater the education to match their aptitudes and abilities so I think that's one principle another is that it's important to teach teach problem solving or teach to the problem not to the tools so this would be like let's say so that's something really important teach to the problem not to the tools this is one of the reasons why I talk so much about hey let's learn problem solving right this is why on this channel you hear us constantly talk about problem solving doing data structures and algorithms going and doing coding challenges on platforms like hacker rank or Coursera or codecademy whatever have you wherever you can find you know you can go and actually do problems problem solving do that okay and that actually builds up your skill set and that's how you discover problem solving and you start to understand it at a deeper level as I was watching this elon's video I found a comment underneath it that's actually really fascinating and I'd like us to unpack that together and it's by Derek Poland and he said there's a difference between dropping out of college because you are a genius with an idea for a company that you're willing to spend a hundred plus hours a week on versus dropping out because you are lazy so that is one huge thing that you have to keep in mind now that genius part of that sentence I don't know if I agree with that but you can drop out of college and work on a lot of other things for example if you want to become a software developer you can become a freelance developer you could become a software developer at big companies without the need to go to college or spend a lot of money you could go and learn all the things on your own you could go on YouTube and watch content you could find mentors right you can find there are plenty of other ways people can go to a coding boot camp people can go take online classes people can watch content for free and you can learn and actually get a job so I don't think you need to be a genius to need to drop out of college I don't think necessarily needing an idea is a huge Factor either so something to just keep in mind because I know these are like if it has 23 000 likes I know a lot of people agree with it if a lot of people agree with it you might agree with it and I wanted to just get in there in your head and kind of unpack and debunk that a little bit before we continue on I want to end the video on one bonus clip from Bill Gates and his family basically um uh Bill Gates actually ended up dropping out of college as well and uh his family paid his parents paid for his tuition and he was like yeah I'm just gonna take a little bit of time off and then Watch What Happens so I'm gonna just cut to that part of the interview well they were very generous they um you know paid for my tuition at the time officially I went on leave and so you know if the company hadn't gone well uh Harvard's very generous about letting people come back so I actually really love this one and by the way this video is by uh Evan Carmichael he put this video up uh but anyways so you guys could go check that out if you wanted to but I thought this was really fascinating because that's exactly what I did to grow clever programmer as a business I took I was like okay what do I know I know the skill of software development where do I have more leverage and teaching other people how to become software developers because I had done it myself I had done it very very successfully and I was making a six-figure income at the age of 21 right I was making over a hundred thousand dollars a year at 21 and people were like hey how are you doing this and a lot of people started asking me that and and I started a YouTube channel and started taking off uh really really quickly and what I did at the end of 2016 was go hey I'm just going to take one semester off like just one semester right I'm gonna take that off and I'm gonna see what happens and if that doesn't work out then I can still go back to college so I technically didn't just you know in my mind it wasn't like a drop drop out now granted the difference between me and Bill Gates is he dropped out of Harvard right I dropped out of a community college I was Oakton Community College I had a terrible GPA I wasn't I don't have a 155 IQ like Bill Gates here does right and um so I find that part actually really fascinating and that's also what he did permanent thing so you never expect so you are thinking at some point I'll end up going back and finishing I wasn't but yeah if I'd been unrealistic in the the business hadn't worked out I could have and so you know my last parting Thoughts with this are a lot of people when they think of dropping out of college or you know stopping College they think of this big freaking thing where you have to sign the stamp of approval where you can just never ever in your life ever go back and I think that messes you up because then you think it's this either or thing whereas how garyvee says it can be an and thing where you can go do the thing that you really want to do and then you have three months to prove to yourself that you are going to do this thing that you're going to make something of yourself that you're going to make your dreams a reality that you actually are going to put in the hard work that you told yourself and everybody else around you that you would that's what that like time off that little semester off or whatever it may be allows you to actually be able to do so my parting words to you are if you are considering dropping out of college or stopping College uh and if you're not right if you're already out of college uh and and you're doing a job and you're like yeah I want to become a software developer first of all you don't need a degree right and second of all if you are thinking about if you're somebody in college and you're thinking about dropping out you don't have to think about this this and uh this or thing you could go hey I can actually take a semester off and I can always go back if I feel like I'm not putting in the right effort if I feel like things aren't working out the way I plan right it could be your backup plan and there's nothing wrong with that right Bill Gates has done it um I'm nowhere near as successful as Bill Gates but I myself have also done that and it turned out well so think about that hopefully it gives you some more options some broader perspective it's not this either or thing the world doesn't end if you don't have a college degree I know it kills some of us in our heads and we let it become this huge limiting belief but I just want to let you know look it's okay if you went to college great if you enjoyed it great but if you didn't that's also okay and you can still make something of your life and you can still get a job as a software developer you can still become a full stack developer okay that's it this is your boy Causey if you enjoyed this video smash that like button subscribe to the channel so we can keep this thing growing this channel is all about full stack development teaching you how to become a better developer this is your boy qazi I love your beautiful face and I'll see you in the next video foreignthere's no need even to have a college degree a lot of you keep asking me do you need a college degree to become a successful web developer software developer a full stack developer and in this video we're gonna take not my word but elon's word and see what he has to say about the subject with that said smash the like button so this video goes out to as many people as possible and with that said let's jump right into it there's no need even to have a college degree at all or even high school the wow that's a really bold statement no need to even have a college degree but let's see what he has to expound on that um I mean if somebody graduated from a great University that maybe in Indy that may be an indication that they will be capable of great things but so for me one of the big takes takeaways from this is graduating from a university might be a good indicator that you might be likely likely to succeed but it isn't and all be all great things but it's not necessarily the case you know if you look at um say people like Bill Gates or Larry Ellison Steve Jobs these guys didn't graduate from college that's true take a look at these people right that he mentioned Larry Page the founder of Google Bill Gates founder of Microsoft they did not actually graduate from college but watch what he actually says next I think that's important but if you had a chance to hire them of course that would be a good idea whoa Elon you're right about that if I had uh Bill Gates knocking on my door I think I would take him up on his offer so you know just looking just for evidence of exceptional ability looking for evidence for exceptional ability now let's see what he means when he says that of exceptional ability and if there's a track record of exceptional achievement then it's likely that that will continue into the future so Elon looks for a track record of exceptional ability okay so what does that mean for you well what that means for what that might mean for a software developer or somebody who wants to become a full stack developer is stop looking around for I need a piece of paper that's worth sixty thousand dollars I need this that's not what you actually need what you actually need is a solid skill set skills that you could show from your portfolio skills that you could show when you're on that job interview and skills you can use to actually get a job because when people bring you in that's mainly what they're looking for okay so for you it doesn't ultimately matter that much that you don't have a certification or you don't have a piece of paper now of course it depends what school or or sorry what job you're trying to get into if you're trying to become a data scientist there might require you to have a PhD but for Elon what he says is I want to see if you have a proven track record of exceptional ability and in my opinion the best way to show that you have exceptional ability is to show that by your skill set okay and also by a foundation of projects that you might have built now you might ask Elon but what if I do want to learn and I do want to educate myself what should I be working on because not all learning can be that bad right so what are the skills I should pick up when I want to actually improve my skill set and here's what Elon has to say to cater the education to match their aptitudes and abilities so I think that's one principle another is that it's important to teach teach problem solving or teach to the problem not to the tools so this would be like let's say so that's something really important teach to the problem not to the tools this is one of the reasons why I talk so much about hey let's learn problem solving right this is why on this channel you hear us constantly talk about problem solving doing data structures and algorithms going and doing coding challenges on platforms like hacker rank or Coursera or codecademy whatever have you wherever you can find you know you can go and actually do problems problem solving do that okay and that actually builds up your skill set and that's how you discover problem solving and you start to understand it at a deeper level as I was watching this elon's video I found a comment underneath it that's actually really fascinating and I'd like us to unpack that together and it's by Derek Poland and he said there's a difference between dropping out of college because you are a genius with an idea for a company that you're willing to spend a hundred plus hours a week on versus dropping out because you are lazy so that is one huge thing that you have to keep in mind now that genius part of that sentence I don't know if I agree with that but you can drop out of college and work on a lot of other things for example if you want to become a software developer you can become a freelance developer you could become a software developer at big companies without the need to go to college or spend a lot of money you could go and learn all the things on your own you could go on YouTube and watch content you could find mentors right you can find there are plenty of other ways people can go to a coding boot camp people can go take online classes people can watch content for free and you can learn and actually get a job so I don't think you need to be a genius to need to drop out of college I don't think necessarily needing an idea is a huge Factor either so something to just keep in mind because I know these are like if it has 23 000 likes I know a lot of people agree with it if a lot of people agree with it you might agree with it and I wanted to just get in there in your head and kind of unpack and debunk that a little bit before we continue on I want to end the video on one bonus clip from Bill Gates and his family basically um uh Bill Gates actually ended up dropping out of college as well and uh his family paid his parents paid for his tuition and he was like yeah I'm just gonna take a little bit of time off and then Watch What Happens so I'm gonna just cut to that part of the interview well they were very generous they um you know paid for my tuition at the time officially I went on leave and so you know if the company hadn't gone well uh Harvard's very generous about letting people come back so I actually really love this one and by the way this video is by uh Evan Carmichael he put this video up uh but anyways so you guys could go check that out if you wanted to but I thought this was really fascinating because that's exactly what I did to grow clever programmer as a business I took I was like okay what do I know I know the skill of software development where do I have more leverage and teaching other people how to become software developers because I had done it myself I had done it very very successfully and I was making a six-figure income at the age of 21 right I was making over a hundred thousand dollars a year at 21 and people were like hey how are you doing this and a lot of people started asking me that and and I started a YouTube channel and started taking off uh really really quickly and what I did at the end of 2016 was go hey I'm just going to take one semester off like just one semester right I'm gonna take that off and I'm gonna see what happens and if that doesn't work out then I can still go back to college so I technically didn't just you know in my mind it wasn't like a drop drop out now granted the difference between me and Bill Gates is he dropped out of Harvard right I dropped out of a community college I was Oakton Community College I had a terrible GPA I wasn't I don't have a 155 IQ like Bill Gates here does right and um so I find that part actually really fascinating and that's also what he did permanent thing so you never expect so you are thinking at some point I'll end up going back and finishing I wasn't but yeah if I'd been unrealistic in the the business hadn't worked out I could have and so you know my last parting Thoughts with this are a lot of people when they think of dropping out of college or you know stopping College they think of this big freaking thing where you have to sign the stamp of approval where you can just never ever in your life ever go back and I think that messes you up because then you think it's this either or thing whereas how garyvee says it can be an and thing where you can go do the thing that you really want to do and then you have three months to prove to yourself that you are going to do this thing that you're going to make something of yourself that you're going to make your dreams a reality that you actually are going to put in the hard work that you told yourself and everybody else around you that you would that's what that like time off that little semester off or whatever it may be allows you to actually be able to do so my parting words to you are if you are considering dropping out of college or stopping College uh and if you're not right if you're already out of college uh and and you're doing a job and you're like yeah I want to become a software developer first of all you don't need a degree right and second of all if you are thinking about if you're somebody in college and you're thinking about dropping out you don't have to think about this this and uh this or thing you could go hey I can actually take a semester off and I can always go back if I feel like I'm not putting in the right effort if I feel like things aren't working out the way I plan right it could be your backup plan and there's nothing wrong with that right Bill Gates has done it um I'm nowhere near as successful as Bill Gates but I myself have also done that and it turned out well so think about that hopefully it gives you some more options some broader perspective it's not this either or thing the world doesn't end if you don't have a college degree I know it kills some of us in our heads and we let it become this huge limiting belief but I just want to let you know look it's okay if you went to college great if you enjoyed it great but if you didn't that's also okay and you can still make something of your life and you can still get a job as a software developer you can still become a full stack developer okay that's it this is your boy Causey if you enjoyed this video smash that like button subscribe to the channel so we can keep this thing growing this channel is all about full stack development teaching you how to become a better developer this is your boy qazi I love your beautiful face and I'll see you in the next video foreignthere's no need even to have a college degree a lot of you keep asking me do you need a college degree to become a successful web developer software developer a full stack developer and in this video we're gonna take not my word but elon's word and see what he has to say about the subject with that said smash the like button so this video goes out to as many people as possible and with that said let's jump right into it there's no need even to have a college degree at all or even high school the wow that's a really bold statement no need to even have a college degree but let's see what he has to expound on that um I mean if somebody graduated from a great University that maybe in Indy that may be an indication that they will be capable of great things but so for me one of the big takes takeaways from this is graduating from a university might be a good indicator that you might be likely likely to succeed but it isn't and all be all great things but it's not necessarily the case you know if you look at um say people like Bill Gates or Larry Ellison Steve Jobs these guys didn't graduate from college that's true take a look at these people right that he mentioned Larry Page the founder of Google Bill Gates founder of Microsoft they did not actually graduate from college but watch what he actually says next I think that's important but if you had a chance to hire them of course that would be a good idea whoa Elon you're right about that if I had uh Bill Gates knocking on my door I think I would take him up on his offer so you know just looking just for evidence of exceptional ability looking for evidence for exceptional ability now let's see what he means when he says that of exceptional ability and if there's a track record of exceptional achievement then it's likely that that will continue into the future so Elon looks for a track record of exceptional ability okay so what does that mean for you well what that means for what that might mean for a software developer or somebody who wants to become a full stack developer is stop looking around for I need a piece of paper that's worth sixty thousand dollars I need this that's not what you actually need what you actually need is a solid skill set skills that you could show from your portfolio skills that you could show when you're on that job interview and skills you can use to actually get a job because when people bring you in that's mainly what they're looking for okay so for you it doesn't ultimately matter that much that you don't have a certification or you don't have a piece of paper now of course it depends what school or or sorry what job you're trying to get into if you're trying to become a data scientist there might require you to have a PhD but for Elon what he says is I want to see if you have a proven track record of exceptional ability and in my opinion the best way to show that you have exceptional ability is to show that by your skill set okay and also by a foundation of projects that you might have built now you might ask Elon but what if I do want to learn and I do want to educate myself what should I be working on because not all learning can be that bad right so what are the skills I should pick up when I want to actually improve my skill set and here's what Elon has to say to cater the education to match their aptitudes and abilities so I think that's one principle another is that it's important to teach teach problem solving or teach to the problem not to the tools so this would be like let's say so that's something really important teach to the problem not to the tools this is one of the reasons why I talk so much about hey let's learn problem solving right this is why on this channel you hear us constantly talk about problem solving doing data structures and algorithms going and doing coding challenges on platforms like hacker rank or Coursera or codecademy whatever have you wherever you can find you know you can go and actually do problems problem solving do that okay and that actually builds up your skill set and that's how you discover problem solving and you start to understand it at a deeper level as I was watching this elon's video I found a comment underneath it that's actually really fascinating and I'd like us to unpack that together and it's by Derek Poland and he said there's a difference between dropping out of college because you are a genius with an idea for a company that you're willing to spend a hundred plus hours a week on versus dropping out because you are lazy so that is one huge thing that you have to keep in mind now that genius part of that sentence I don't know if I agree with that but you can drop out of college and work on a lot of other things for example if you want to become a software developer you can become a freelance developer you could become a software developer at big companies without the need to go to college or spend a lot of money you could go and learn all the things on your own you could go on YouTube and watch content you could find mentors right you can find there are plenty of other ways people can go to a coding boot camp people can go take online classes people can watch content for free and you can learn and actually get a job so I don't think you need to be a genius to need to drop out of college I don't think necessarily needing an idea is a huge Factor either so something to just keep in mind because I know these are like if it has 23 000 likes I know a lot of people agree with it if a lot of people agree with it you might agree with it and I wanted to just get in there in your head and kind of unpack and debunk that a little bit before we continue on I want to end the video on one bonus clip from Bill Gates and his family basically um uh Bill Gates actually ended up dropping out of college as well and uh his family paid his parents paid for his tuition and he was like yeah I'm just gonna take a little bit of time off and then Watch What Happens so I'm gonna just cut to that part of the interview well they were very generous they um you know paid for my tuition at the time officially I went on leave and so you know if the company hadn't gone well uh Harvard's very generous about letting people come back so I actually really love this one and by the way this video is by uh Evan Carmichael he put this video up uh but anyways so you guys could go check that out if you wanted to but I thought this was really fascinating because that's exactly what I did to grow clever programmer as a business I took I was like okay what do I know I know the skill of software development where do I have more leverage and teaching other people how to become software developers because I had done it myself I had done it very very successfully and I was making a six-figure income at the age of 21 right I was making over a hundred thousand dollars a year at 21 and people were like hey how are you doing this and a lot of people started asking me that and and I started a YouTube channel and started taking off uh really really quickly and what I did at the end of 2016 was go hey I'm just going to take one semester off like just one semester right I'm gonna take that off and I'm gonna see what happens and if that doesn't work out then I can still go back to college so I technically didn't just you know in my mind it wasn't like a drop drop out now granted the difference between me and Bill Gates is he dropped out of Harvard right I dropped out of a community college I was Oakton Community College I had a terrible GPA I wasn't I don't have a 155 IQ like Bill Gates here does right and um so I find that part actually really fascinating and that's also what he did permanent thing so you never expect so you are thinking at some point I'll end up going back and finishing I wasn't but yeah if I'd been unrealistic in the the business hadn't worked out I could have and so you know my last parting Thoughts with this are a lot of people when they think of dropping out of college or you know stopping College they think of this big freaking thing where you have to sign the stamp of approval where you can just never ever in your life ever go back and I think that messes you up because then you think it's this either or thing whereas how garyvee says it can be an and thing where you can go do the thing that you really want to do and then you have three months to prove to yourself that you are going to do this thing that you're going to make something of yourself that you're going to make your dreams a reality that you actually are going to put in the hard work that you told yourself and everybody else around you that you would that's what that like time off that little semester off or whatever it may be allows you to actually be able to do so my parting words to you are if you are considering dropping out of college or stopping College uh and if you're not right if you're already out of college uh and and you're doing a job and you're like yeah I want to become a software developer first of all you don't need a degree right and second of all if you are thinking about if you're somebody in college and you're thinking about dropping out you don't have to think about this this and uh this or thing you could go hey I can actually take a semester off and I can always go back if I feel like I'm not putting in the right effort if I feel like things aren't working out the way I plan right it could be your backup plan and there's nothing wrong with that right Bill Gates has done it um I'm nowhere near as successful as Bill Gates but I myself have also done that and it turned out well so think about that hopefully it gives you some more options some broader perspective it's not this either or thing the world doesn't end if you don't have a college degree I know it kills some of us in our heads and we let it become this huge limiting belief but I just want to let you know look it's okay if you went to college great if you enjoyed it great but if you didn't that's also okay and you can still make something of your life and you can still get a job as a software developer you can still become a full stack developer okay that's it this is your boy Causey if you enjoyed this video smash that like button subscribe to the channel so we can keep this thing growing this channel is all about full stack development teaching you how to become a better developer this is your boy qazi I love your beautiful face and I'll see you in the next video foreign\n"