In a few months, I will be finishing up my master's degree in computer engineering from a fairly well-considered European university, and I am finding it hard to decide what to do after that.

At some point in my life, I want to found a startup, but I don't know if this is the right time for me. The main thing stopping me from founding one right now is that I don't feel at the edge of some field; I don't feel like "I'm living in the future," like a good startup founder should[1]. Side note: thank you YC for the amazing curriculum you put together in Startup School for Future Founders[2].

As the title suggests, I have three possible paths that I would be equally interested in following:

  - Ph.D.:
    - Pros:
      - This seems the best option to get at the edge of some technology;
    - getting paid to study what I am most interested in sounds great;
    - Cons:
      - Academic bureaucracy;
      - I might be forced to write more papers than I want to.
  - Google: this summer I interned here and got a conversion offer.
    - Pro: If I get picked by the right team I might learn a lot of interesting stuff and get at the edge of some technology.
    - Con: "[...]getting a normal job may actually make you less able to start a startup, by turning you into a tame animal who thinks he needs an office to work in and a product manager to tell him what software to write."[3]
  - Starting a startup: "So now I'd advise people to go ahead and start startups right out of college. There's no better time to take risks than when you're young. Sure, you'll probably fail. But even failure will get you to the ultimate goal faster than getting a job."[3]

Startup founders, what would you have done if right after finishing university you had these options?

  1: http://www.paulgraham.com/before.html
  2: https://www.startupschool.org/future-founders
  3: http://www.paulgraham.com/notnot.html