How Universities Should Prepare Founders
August 2026 How should universities prepare students to start startups?
2026 年 8 月 大学应如何帮助学生做好创业准备？
Y Combinator is in the perfect position to answer this question, because we get them next.
Y Combinator 非常适合回答这个问题，因为我们接下来会得到它们。
We're like grad school.
我们就像研究生院。
And because YC has had 20 years to refine its model of what a promising founder looks like, you probably won't find a better target.
由于 YC 用了 20 年的时间来完善其关于有前途的创始人的模型，因此您可能找不到更好的目标。
What do the YC partners look for?
YC 合作伙伴寻找什么？
It's surprisingly simple.
这非常简单。
They want people who are good at building things and have a
他们想要善于建造事物并拥有
habit of doing it.
这样做的习惯。
The hard part of startups is product: knowing what to build, and being able to build it.
初创公司最困难的部分是产品：知道要构建什么，并且能够构建它。
And that kind of knowledge comes from studying computer science or mechanical engineering or molecular biology, not management or finance.
这种知识来自于计算机科学、机械工程或分子生物学的学习，而不是管理或金融。
[ 1 ] So the way to prepare undergraduates to become successful founders is not to give them some new curriculum focused on "entrepreneurship".
[1] 因此，让本科生成为成功创始人的方法并不是给他们提供一些专注于“创业”的新课程。
It's to do what universities already do
这是做大学已经做的事情
best — to teach them computer science and mechanical engineering and molecular biology.
最好的——教他们计算机科学、机械工程和分子生物学。
[ 2 ] Indeed, preparing students to start startups is closer to the ideal of liberal education than preparing them for almost any other kind of career.
[ 2 ] Indeed, preparing students to start startups is closer to the ideal of liberal education than preparing them for almost any other kind of career.
Startups succeed or fail based on how much customers like the product.
初创公司的成功或失败取决于客户对产品的喜欢程度。
Customers don't care what the founders studied in college.
客户并不关心创始人在大学里学了什么。
So founders are free to study whatever they want, as long as they get
因此，创始人可以自由地研究他们想要的任何东西，只要他们能得到
good at building things.
擅长建造东西。
But building should be understood in a very broad sense.
但建筑应该从非常广泛的意义上来理解。
It doesn't mean all would-be founders have to study some form of engineering.
这并不意味着所有未来的创始人都必须学习某种形式的工程学。
Almost any kind of expertise that could be described as building or creating could be useful.
几乎任何可以被描述为构建或创造的专业知识都可能有用。
It was useful to Steve Jobs to have studied calligraphy, for example; it was one of the reasons Apple dominated desktop publishing.
例如，学习书法对史蒂夫·乔布斯很有用。这是苹果主导桌面出版的原因之一。
So while math and science and engineering and
因此，虽然数学、科学和工程以及
design tend to be good bets, I would not want to draw a sharp line around them, because I can imagine other forms of building that could be useful.
design tend to be good bets, I would not want to draw a sharp line around them, because I can imagine other forms of building that could be useful.
And of course you don't have to major in something to be good at it.
当然，你不必主修某件事才能擅长它。
<!-- Mark Zuckerberg was good at programming, but he was a psychology major, not a CS major.
<!-- 马克·扎克伯格擅长编程，但他是心理学专业，而不是 CS 专业。
--> The best way to describe what would-be founders should study is that they should seek out powerful ideas.
--> 描述未来创始人应该学习什么的最好方式是，他们应该寻找强有力的想法。
But smart
但很聪明
people are naturally attracted to powerful ideas anyway.
无论如何，人们自然会被强大的想法所吸引。
So as long as departments teaching powerful ideas exist, the sort of people who'd make good founders will find them.
因此，只要教授强大思想的院系存在，那些能够成为优秀创始人的人就会找到它们。
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