I have read a few of Paul Graham's essays, and I think starting a startup would suit me well because I am willing to take the risks involved in it and work the long hours as opposed to taking a low-stress, comfortable job working in a cubicle. The main problems at the moment are that I have poor programming skills (To give you an idea of my current skill level, the most recent concept I learned in C++ was Vectors a few months ago.) and that I have no friends that are interested in programming or in a startup. So finding a co-founder would be a problem. But I have been considering joining a club on campus with other grad students that are interested in forming a startup

I am thinking I may actually like the business aspect of running the startup as opposed to the hacking side, even though I'm rather introverted and wouldn't make a great salesman. I want to make the decisions and have the vision for the startup's future

But in the meantime since I'm not in a Physics research group yet, I would have to self-teach myself programming in my free time. How should I start getting better? Should I try working through O'Reilly's book? Look at someone's existing code and try to improve it? Come up with my own problem to solve?

Also, if I should just work at a startup first, before starting my own startup, what job can I possibly get? My programming skills aren't good enough for what they're looking for.

Or, to learn the necessary programming and startup details, would I be better off staying the school at the moment (to try to network with others interested in a startup) or quitting asap to get a programming job at a non-startup with the intention to leave to form a startup?

I also had some questions to see what you guys think of some of the things Paul Graham said. He once said "I would guess a smart person can learn to hack sufficiently well in 6 months to a year. The best way to do it would be to find some startup to hire you in an initially menial capacity.." Given my previous (but near minimal) experience with C++, would it still really only take 6 months?

PG also mentioned that those who try a startup, but fail, can EASILY get hired by another company. Do you guys think this is true?