Ask HN: Grad-school or Startup?

Non American confused about either applying to a mediocre grad school for CS (would help with work auth) – my undergrad was a disaster and almost put me off programming until I started working on projects of my own, CS106A by Mehran Sahami & my discovery of Ruby

I would've loved to be at Stanford or any top CS school as I feel sound CS skills actually do translate positively to the industry when working on a high-level system but thanks to my low undergrad GPA I don't even qualify for most of them. Alternatively MOOCs could help in understanding various concepts if I go through with the startup route

OTOH I've been mulling over establishing my own startup. I've freelanced a bit, worked for a company and found that I loved product ownership and simply couldn't stop charting out various courses, features, marketing strategies, etc for the product, and refining them through various iterations, etc esp. Edtech w/ regards to Software Industry[1]

Also I'd have to establish the startup in India which brings various challenges which lower my probability to build a world-class product[2]

Ideally I'd finish my graduate course & work at a decent-sized company/startup, pick up valuable insights and later work on my startup

[1]College education (esp in India) is broken – it doesn't offer a lot more than just a bunch of textbooks to learn from. It's still exam-based, not many co-op programs, no insistence to develop other related skills, an outdated & irrelevant syllabus to the industry, unmotivated & egotistic professors (one of whom failed me for questioning the spiel around OOP), etc

[2]Specific to me, not that Indian startups don't build WC products eg HackerRank. Pedigrees in the industry are based on the founding team which expect an IIT/M founder – this directly affects hiring, Investor interest, Press, etc and the product itself takes a backseat

PS I love conversing with fellow startup folks, hit me up if you think you've got something to share