Mnc jobs - a must in life ??

Originally Posted by Unregistered

These people are definitely more educated and savvy about using financial markets to raise money and to exit.

The problem with the above list is that it misses out a whole lot of less savvy founders but nonetheless rich people who cut their teeth the traditional way building successful businesses organically and never exiting via listing. By definition, these people will not be public figures.

Your list is intrinsically skewed towards the JC routers.

I think his list has both listed & private companies. I also don't agree that someone from JC will know better than a poly student how to raise money from financial market, it doesn't even make sense at all.

Most business owners engage arrangers and underwriters if they want to IPO, never heard of anyone doing it himself so not sure how you study JC or poly affects one's decision on raising capital 20 years later.

I think you are confirming his point about all this rumor, hearsay and unsubstantiated stories are all around, but no way to verify. I myself also always hear a lot about how some uneducated guy manage to strike rich, but so far his list is the only hard fact we have and its not a pretty picture for poly grads.

Originally Posted by rbh

The problem here is lots of hearsay presented as truth with no hard data. Anyone can BS how fantastic their business is, but I take it with a pinch of salt as no way to verify. The only successful ones we can say for sure are those that manage to IPO & need to report their financial results or are verified by independent third party.

So far the results for the most successful business people in Singapore with verified wealth seem to skew towards those on JC route instead of the commonly held belief that the best poly "streetwisers" are financially more successful than the best JC "examwisers". One also has to note that Poly route intakes exceed JC route, so even a 50%/50% split would weigh favorably to the JC route guys.

Sim Wong Hoo - Creative - Poly Route
Olivia Lum - Hyflux - JC Route
Keith Chua - ABR - JC Route
Loo Choon Yong - Raffles Medical - JC Route
Wong Brothers - Charles & Keith - Not sure, but profile reads like poly Route
Peter Lim - Investments / Holdings - JC Route
John Tan - ACR Capital - JC Route
Douglas Foo - Sakae - JC Route
Yee Jen Jong - AsknLearn - JC Route, NCMP from Worker's Party
Adam Khoo - Adam Khoo Learning Technologies - JC Route
Tan Wee Beng - Wee Tiong Engineering - JC Route
Derek Goh - Serial System - Not sure, but profile reads like JC Route
Ng Chin Siau - Q&M Dental - JC Route
Richard Eu - Eu Yan Sang - ACS, Kent College, more prestigious than JC Route

I have tried to avoid listing names which either wealth comes mostly from inheritance, or they found companies long time ago where there really isn't this concept of JC vs poly route. This is just a sample list of owners of more well-known businesses in Singapore where financial results and net worth can either be verified through SGX filings or authoritative sources such as E&Y, Forbes, Businessweek etc.

I have no intention to start some stupid flame war between JC batch and poly batch. I myself am a poly grad who got a sponsored university degree from US while working. I just wanted to clarify this urban legend that is often repeated that the most successful entrepreneur is often from Poly and their street wisdom somehow enables the best of them to beat the JC "elites" when it comes to doing business.

This does not of course mean that people like me cannot be spectacularly successful just because we are from poly, but neither do we do empirical evidence justice by perpetuating the myth that poly graduates either on average or as an outlying group do better than our JC counterparts.

Thanks for the research, it is insightful. Must have taken you some time to compile. I am not 100% convinced, but will not dismiss it outright or find excuses to justify why poly grad not many in the list like some others.

The theory is simple to understand.

The more educated one is, the more likely he is to be an employee. He (and his family) has invested so much time and money in his education, so he is less likely to take the risk of being an entrepreneur, and more so if he's good in his studies.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

The theory is simple to understand.

The more educated one is, the more likely he is to be an employee. He (and his family) has invested so much time and money in his education, so he is less likely to take the risk of being an entrepreneur, and more so if he's good in his studies.

That's suppose to be the theory everyone knows, but seems research by above poster shows this is not the case.

I suspect the better educated students dominate high end entrepreneurship and senior management while the rest like poly & ITE are more into small business set ups like small retail, import export etc.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

That's suppose to be the theory everyone knows, but seems research by above poster shows this is not the case.

I suspect the better educated students dominate high end entrepreneurship and senior management while the rest like poly & ITE are more into small business set ups like small retail, import export etc.

One possible reason is that people from JCs tend to come from middle or middle upper class families which enables them to get startup capital or business connections from their parents more easily therefore they can grow their business faster compared to the poly grads who have to start from scratch.

Irregardless of the reason, the end result is that JC students have a better record of large enterprise success while base on my experience poly grads are more prevalent in small size companies.

Looks like thread has gone into a poly vs JC thingy.

My observation is that we see more major successes for the JC route group is because they went to good uni and when they did their business, they were able to do better in the strategic planning and analysis portion of business and hence were able to scale better into large scale firms. Poly grads and ITE and school of hard knock group also can but fewer by virtue of their weaker analytical and strategic thinking ability. As you grow into hundreds of millions in market cap, streetsmart need to be combined with brain and academic smarts. That is why SPRING work so hard and give so much grant for SME bosses to get an MBA.

In fact if you look deep into the top entrepreneurs, i suspect many not just went to JC but were from top JC or top uni. These are the exception from JC route, they combined entrepreneurial drive , streetsmartness with academic intelligence. So naturally they scale higher!

Sorry to derail the thread further, my 2 cents:

What you & others above say make sense. I am a deg grad & worked for a few SMEs founded by people who graduate from school of hard knocks. My observation is most of them can’t expand their business beyond a few countries and profit seem to max out at $3-$5 million followed by years of stagnation.

My take is many of these bosses are quite street smart at identifying profitable niches and striking a few key client relations, but unfortunately they lack the experience and theoretical background when it comes to running a big organization. As the business grows, it becomes less about individual abilities and more about process, governance, strategy, planning and marketing. This is when having a good academic foundation become critical.

Most of these lower educated bosses look down on their higher educated employees and dismiss all their suggestions as text book rubbish with no value. Due to their initial success, they assume that since they have many years experience on the ground, young degree punks know nothing and just need to follow orders.

So in the end the good workers leave and the boss is ended with a bunch of mediocre yes man who just hang around waiting for instructions. Bosses with good academic background understand the need to strike a balance between practice and theory if you really want to expand the business.

Originally Posted by unregistered

Looks like thread has gone into a poly vs JC thingy.

My observation is that we see more major successes for the JC route group is because they went to good uni and when they did their business, they were able to do better in the strategic planning and analysis portion of business and hence were able to scale better into large scale firms. Poly grads and ITE and school of hard knock group also can but fewer by virtue of their weaker analytical and strategic thinking ability. As you grow into hundreds of millions in market cap, streetsmart need to be combined with brain and academic smarts. That is why SPRING work so hard and give so much grant for SME bosses to get an MBA.

In fact if you look deep into the top entrepreneurs, i suspect many not just went to JC but were from top JC or top uni. These are the exception from JC route, they combined entrepreneurial drive , streetsmartness with academic intelligence. So naturally they scale higher!

Originally Posted by area51

Sorry to derail the thread further, my 2 cents:

What you & others above say make sense. I am a deg grad & worked for a few SMEs founded by people who graduate from school of hard knocks. My observation is most of them can’t expand their business beyond a few countries and profit seem to max out at $3-$5 million followed by years of stagnation.

My take is many of these bosses are quite street smart at identifying profitable niches and striking a few key client relations, but unfortunately they lack the experience and theoretical background when it comes to running a big organization. As the business grows, it becomes less about individual abilities and more about process, governance, strategy, planning and marketing. This is when having a good academic foundation become critical.

Most of these lower educated bosses look down on their higher educated employees and dismiss all their suggestions as text book rubbish with no value. Due to their initial success, they assume that since they have many years experience on the ground, young degree punks know nothing and just need to follow orders.

So in the end the good workers leave and the boss is ended with a bunch of mediocre yes man who just hang around waiting for instructions. Bosses with good academic background understand the need to strike a balance between practice and theory if you really want to expand the business.

$3-5mil is already hugely successful by my standard. Many booksmarts can't progress beyond working in a bank's back office. Some will venture to start tuition centres and cafes, but such businesses don't require their analytical skills acquired via the JC route.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

$3-5mil is already hugely successful by my standard. Many booksmarts can't progress beyond working in a bank's back office. Some will venture to start tuition centres and cafes, but such businesses don't require their analytical skills acquired via the JC route.

The discussion so far is on latest findings that big local self made enterprise is mostly founded by highly educated JC to uni students instead of the common belief that poly grads are better entrepruneurs because they are streetwise.

For us nomral ppl $3million profit is definitely a lot, but I think the topic is on big successful companies that are worth few hundred million dollars at least, dun think they are refering to tution centres & cafes.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

The discussion so far is on latest findings that big local self made enterprise is mostly founded by highly educated JC to uni students instead of the common belief that poly grads are better entrepruneurs because they are streetwise.

For us nomral ppl $3million profit is definitely a lot, but I think the topic is on big successful companies that are worth few hundred million dollars at least, dun think they are refering to tution centres & cafes.

For hugely successful firms, we have Sim Wong Hoo, Ng Teng Fong and Wee Cho Yaw, all of whom are non-graduates.

For mildly successful enterprises, we have a whole lot of uneducated towkays.

Most JC grads and uni grads work for others for life. Maybe 1% will found companies, of which 1% will become hugely successful.

Poly grads are better risk takers in general. Maybe 20% will found companies, of which 30% will be mildly successful.