Allan Vermeulen on Education
“A nice wide grounding for your education is super important. The idea that you have to get very specialized and narrow when you are 20 years old seems crazy to me.”
On the topic of education, Allan gave “his best advice to students in college,” the role of fostering creativity in education, and the importance of diversity in one’s education.
“The big piece of advice I give people who are in college… is when you chose courses, choose your course on the professor who is teaching it and not on the course material as much as you possibly can.”
On pursuing entrepreneurial pursuits in the place of education:
“It’s awesome if you have a vision, like Bill Gates, and I’ve interviewed a lot of people who dropped out to pursue something and not finish graduate school and it just didn’t work out and they always regretted not spending the little extra bit of time to finish their degree. So that’s a tough one, because if you have the drive of a Bill Gates, then sure take that path. But don’t take it lightly.”
On creativity:
“The engineers we hire at Amazon are very creative types. Engineers are not order takers. We ask them what they do that was not just what they were asked to do. And the best engineers are exceedingly creative… It’s important to diversify yourself personally. To me that’s how you foster creativity. You put yourself in new situations, new places, and you figure out how to deal with them.”