Der junge Mann, der sich von Peking-Universität und Tsinghua-Universität zurückgezogen hat, wird ein CEO mit einem monatlichen Einkommen von 5.000 Yuan.

It's better to drop out of school directly than to waste time

Abu, a junior student who was about to graduate from Peking University School of Medicine in one year, decided to drop out of Peking University.

After Abu submitted his application to drop out of school, the teacher at the school didn't approve it immediately. Instead, the teacher advised him to "think it over again". He went back and thought about it for another half a month, but still decided to drop out.

Actually, before deciding to submit the application to drop out of school, he was already very determined to leave campus ahead of schedule. Compared with going to college, he preferred the path of starting a business.

Starting a business is not unfamiliar to him. When he was in high school in Xinjiang, he started a business with his classmates. They opened a grocery store and an advertising company on campus. In 2019, he was admitted to Peking University School of Medicine. He took a one - year suspension from school in his freshman year to work on some small projects. Due to the outbreak of the pandemic, the projects were forced to stop. In 2023, the emergence of ChatGPT brought the AI field back into the public view. Seeing the opportunity, Abu targeted this industry and developed a new project with his partners - an AI figurine base.

Soon, they got a million - dollar order, and then they successfully received a million - yuan financing. The trivial matters of starting a business, such as negotiating cooperation, going on business trips, and conducting research and development, kept him very busy. Sometimes when he worked overtime in the office, he accidentally sat there until dawn. He thought that since they had received the financing, they should be responsible to the investors. So he might as well go all in on this industry. After thinking about it for two or three months, he proposed to his family in May 2024 that he wanted to drop out of school and start a business.

Liu Deze, a member of the post - 00s generation, is also a college student who dropped out of the University of Auckland to start a business. After returning to China during the holiday in October 2023, he saw that the AI field in China was developing rapidly. His peers around him were all engaged in AI entrepreneurship. He thought it was a great opportunity because there were relatively few people in the early stage of the AI industry. So the earlier one entered the field, the lower the threshold would be. It only took him two nights to make the decision to drop out of school, and it took him one and a half months to convince his parents. His parents are both civil servants in Shandong. According to his parents' plan, his original career path was to find a job in the accounting field or take the civil service exam after graduating from the accounting major and work steadily.

To convince his parents, Liu Deze made a detailed PPT plan. Just like making a project report for a client, he introduced his career plan to his parents in detail. "If I take a suspension from school now, I can enter the industry right away. But by the time I graduate, maybe only master's degree holders can enter this industry. By the time I finish my master's degree, only doctoral degree holders can enter this industry. And I'm not majoring in this field, which will make the threshold for me to enter even higher. So after weighing the pros and cons, I gradually convinced my parents."

Guo Zhonghao, a second - year postgraduate student majoring in materials science at Tsinghua University, also dropped out of Tsinghua University in June this year. He is currently the CEO of an AI technology company. He led his team to develop an AI aurora sound system. The project has now achieved break - even. After two rounds of financing, the company is valued at tens of millions.

Guo Zhonghao's application for suspension from school. Photo source: the interviewee

When going through the formalities to drop out of school, it only took him 20 minutes to organize the materials for dropping out, and the formalities were completed "very, very quickly". His reason for dropping out was "deciding not to complete the studies due to starting a business". Actually, he had already taken a one - year suspension from school before dropping out. The school regulations state that the suspension period generally does not exceed three years, and each suspension can only be for one year. If he wanted to continue the suspension, he would have to go through the suspension process again. But awkwardly, right after he completed the suspension formalities, his tutor immediately removed him from the group chat. For various reasons, he didn't want to maintain this situation anymore. "What's the meaning of doing this? Do I have to get this degree to prove that I've finished my studies? But it has nothing to do with my business. " He thought it was better to drop out of school directly than to waste time.

It's worth noting that dropping out of school or taking a suspension to start a business is gradually becoming a trend. When Guo Zhonghao went to the academic affairs office to submit the materials for suspension, he found that there was already a thick stack of suspension applications on the table. "This is just from our college." He gradually realized that even in top - tier universities like Tsinghua and Peking, the number of students taking a suspension or dropping out had increased.

Wteam is a non - profit organization that focuses on early - stage college student entrepreneurship. Wan Yao, the executive president of the organization, said, "Among the 100 young CEOs incubated by Wteam every year, one - third are current college students, one - third are students on suspension, and one - third are dropouts." She found that more and more young people are now taking a suspension or even dropping out of school to start a business.

The diploma that is important but not that important

The young people who choose to start a business instead of continuing their studies are not just following the trend. They have made this decision after careful consideration.

Before deciding to drop out of school, Abu had a long conversation with a teacher at the university for more than two hours. The teacher was a little sorry about his decision to drop out. "Many people can't get in even if they want to. Isn't it a bit of a pity to give it up so easily?" He had a deep impression of that conversation. "The teacher mainly talked about the importance of the Peking University diploma." In the teacher's view, if your business fails, or you don't want to live a life full of uncertainties anymore, you can still find a good job with the Peking University diploma. But if you drop out of school, you'll have no way out.

However, for Abu at present, he can neither fully immerse himself in his studies nor fully focus on his business. Instead of lingering in the middle, it's better to try the path he's more interested in first.

Leo, a post - 00s entrepreneur who dropped out of Cornell University, analyzed from the perspective of time investment: "If you're a part - time entrepreneur, you may only have three or four hours a day to work on it. But if you're a full - time entrepreneur, you may have 12 hours a day to work on it. The difference in the time and energy invested is obvious."

The AI toilet improvised by Leo's team in a hackathon

More importantly, besides the Peking University diploma, Abu felt that he had already had a very valuable college life experience. For example, he joined the mountaineering club at Peking University and led a team to conduct an investigation on the border of Yunnan. He learned that the forest rangers on the border were still sticking to their posts at the border of the motherland with a very low salary and enjoying it. He saw a different way of life that was far from his own. These experiences had subtly influenced his choice to drop out of school and start a business.

In his opinion, the mission of college, which is to help him transition from a student to a member of society, has already been accomplished. "Although this diploma is important, it may not be that important for my future career planning or life choices." Abu said.

Some people also feel that the phenomenon of colleges turning into KPI - oriented institutions and students competing for high GPAs has made many young people start to question the meaning and value of going to college.

The materials major that Guo Zhonghao is studying requires a large number of experiments, and the academic pressure is very high. But he is determined that he won't pursue an academic path after graduation. Academic research pursues exploration without considering costs, while entrepreneurship needs to consider the actual commercial prospects. In his view, it's not realistic to incubate an entrepreneurial project in the academic ivory tower.

Compared with doing scientific research and experiments, he prefers to study how to commercialize some ideas. The original idea of the aurora sound system he's working on now came from some colorful lights captured during an experiment. Finally, he turned these accidentally captured magical lights into a creative product.

Some people even directly point out the disconnection of college education. Gui Cang, the host of the AIGC Weekly, believes that a very real problem in doing AI research in college is the "lack of graphics cards". However, AI research requires large - scale operations. The number of graphics cards used in the research directly affects the results of AI research. "The things trained with a small number of graphics cards may not be transferable to larger models. So it creates a problem that you can't learn anything in college now."

A Harvard dropout may be more favored by capital than a graduate

Some adventurous young people choose to step into society from campus ahead of schedule. The accelerated pace of life also gives them more room for trial and error.

Li Wenxuan, 22 years old, decided to take a suspension from school to start a business when he was a freshman at UCB. At present, his AI project has received more than one million US dollars in financing. Many people have asked him why he didn't choose to finish college before starting a business. He quoted a popular internet catchphrase: "The most important thing when getting into the game is to 'get in' because opportunities wait for no one."

The crucial point is that in 2023, when AI entrepreneurship was not that crucial yet, he had stepped on all the inevitable pitfalls. So he had a relatively smooth journey in 2025 when AI was developing so rapidly.

For example, he tried to solve the problem that his team was not good at doing self - media through recruitment. But later he found that only when he truly understood a position himself could he know how to recruit the right people.

In addition, he changed three projects in two years before finally deciding to develop an AI learning software for overseas college students. The application has accumulated more than 40,000 users in half a year since its launch, with revenues exceeding 400,000 US dollars. The monthly traffic and revenues are still in a high - growth state.

Liu Deze tried to develop small - scale AI models for some enterprises, participated in the development of an AI education system, and developed an AI recruitment software, etc. in the more than one - year period after taking a suspension from school in 2023. Liu Deze switched his position in the AI field at an average pace of once every three months and was also frantically capturing the new trends in this industry.

For some time, he joined Qiji Startup Camp to systematically learn how to start a business. "Whether to recruit people, whether to seek financing, who will be your partner, and what direction you should take. Every step of starting a business can be quantified."

Many young entrepreneurs rely on online loans to start their businesses. After dropping out of school, Leo sold all his assets, raised more than 200,000 yuan, and also borrowed some online loans. In the entrepreneurial circle he's in, borrowing online loans to start a business is not uncommon. Leo thinks it's a cool thing to start a business with online loans. "Because he has the determination."

Leo's team. Photo source: the interviewee

At a closed - door forum of Wteam, several young entrepreneurs came to a conclusion: Many venture capital institutions like dropout students very much. The better the school the dropout is from, the more they like them. A Harvard dropout may be more favored by capital than a Harvard graduate. These dropouts are willing to give up something very valuable, which shows that they really believe in starting a business. They dare not to follow the beaten path, dare to challenge authority, dare to crazily believe that they can change the world, and rush towards the future without hesitation.

Abu admitted that he has some adventurous genes in him. Dropping out of Peking University is not the first time he has dropped out of school in his life. He dropped out of primary school after only one year. He played for several years. Later, when he saw that other kids were all going to school during the day, he felt so bored by himself that he thought about whether he should continue his studies. He left school at the age of 6 and didn't return to school until he was 10. Because of his relatively old age, he had to start from the fifth grade. It wasn't until junior high school that he got on the right track in his studies.

Liu Deze also has a relaxed family atmosphere. His parents both graduated from Tsinghua University. They have a free - style of education. When Liu Deze was seven or eight years old, he took a one - year suspension from school. His mother took him on a year - long study tour in Mount Tai, using play as a form of learning.

Can you be a good CEO without ever having a job?

After leaving the simple campus life, they also need to quickly adapt to the rules of the game in society.

As young people who are just starting out, they also have to accept some bad habits in the business world. When developing the AI education software, Liu Deze and his team received 5 million yuan in angel - round financing in three months. But they encountered problems when promoting the software.

He found that many things need to be discussed at wine parties. They jokingly call it the "3D principle" (drink drink drink). Once, he had a meal with the heads of some education institutions in Changsha. As they were eating, the other side started to serve alcohol. In order not to spoil the atmosphere, he had to force himself to drink. Finally, he drank a bottle of baijiu. Of course, the deal was also made.

But this made him feel that it was "meaningless" because in the end, promoting the product was about "relationships" rather than the product itself. "This industry is far from the stage where deals are made at dinner parties." He resolutely wrapped up this project and rushed to the next one.

In the face of emotions and interests, these young CEOs have all had the same hesitation and struggle. Going from fellow travelers who got together out of passion to dividers of real - world interests, this delicate and complex interpersonal relationship troubles every young entrepreneur.