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Peter Thiel Gives Whiz Kids $100K To Quit College, Start Businesses

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Re: Peter Thiel Gives Whiz Kids $100K To Quit College, Start Businesses

#41

Post by hugh3 »

szany wrote: post #31

There seems to be a common misconception about the purpose of the Thiel Fellowship. Two things the Fellowship is not claiming to do: 1) Testing the hypothesis that university is bad 2) Testing the hypothesis that university is not worth the cost for the vast majority of people What the Fellowship might plausibly be doing: 1) Testing the hypothesis that university is not worth the cost for people like the Thiel fellow…

The actual motivation of the Fellowship, which is all over the press and has been related to me by Thiel Foundation workers, is that students with great potential accumulate tons of student loan debt in college and subsequently, instead of taking on projects that might actually help the world, are financially pressured into working at hedge funds and the like

Surely kids as brilliant as these ones sound are getting full scholarships to college?

If you really want to test the hypothesis: that university is not worth the cost for people like the Thiel fellows then I reckon you'd need two groups. One drops out of university and gets $100,000 and extensive mentoring. The other group stays in university and still gets $100,000 and extensive mentoring.

Re: Peter Thiel Gives Whiz Kids $100K To Quit College, Start Businesses

#42

Post by ryanisinallofus »

neebz wrote: post #3

I am seriously lost in terms of innovation. You may give kids money and they'll open up their Lemonade bars but how can you expect innovation without any research? And research without any education? I can't fathom any kid dropping out and then inventing a satellite? or solve any medical problem? And if they don't innovate then how can they even think of ways of bringing it to the consumers (which is the difficult ne…

neebz I think you nailed my sentiments perfectly. I wish HN has a +10 vote-up bomb you could use once a month.

Re: Peter Thiel Gives Whiz Kids $100K To Quit College, Start Businesses

#43

Post by veyron »

ryanisinallofus wrote: post #38

Would the reaction be as mixed here if it was PG doing it? Because YC in effect does the same thing right? I enjoyed my college experience and as the first ever college graduate in my family I wouldn't do anything different. Colleges provide something far more beneficial than the shot at FU money. That said, some people are better off dropping out or never going at all. I'm highly suspect of learning how to be an Ent…

PG's stance, at least nowadays, is not to take college students unless they are going to leave anyway. I dont think he would do it in the way that PT is trying to do it.

My understanding, having been sucked into that trap myself, is that college debt forces people to go to hedge funds or other lucrative jobs that don't utilize the full potential of some of the brightest college students. If you can give students an opportunity to build something, unencumbered by the issue of money, the outcome would be far better for society.

Re: Peter Thiel Gives Whiz Kids $100K To Quit College, Start Businesses

#44

Post by veyron »

Tichy wrote: post #6
neebz wrote: post #3

I am seriously lost in terms of innovation. You may give kids money and they'll open up their Lemonade bars but how can you expect innovation without any research? And research without any education? I can't fathom any kid dropping out and then inventing a satellite? or solve any medical problem? And if they don't innovate then how can they even think of ways of bringing it to the consumers (which is the difficult ne…

All I know is that I certainly did not invent any satellites or solved any medical problems while at university. Instead I tried to collect points in an artificial game system.

If I may ask, what school did you go to? I find a strong clustering of disenchanted replies at certain schools

Re: Peter Thiel Gives Whiz Kids $100K To Quit College, Start Businesses

#45

Post by szany »

hugh3 wrote: post #41
szany wrote: post #31

There seems to be a common misconception about the purpose of the Thiel Fellowship. Two things the Fellowship is not claiming to do: 1) Testing the hypothesis that university is bad 2) Testing the hypothesis that university is not worth the cost for the vast majority of people What the Fellowship might plausibly be doing: 1) Testing the hypothesis that university is not worth the cost for people like the Thiel fellow…

The actual motivation of the Fellowship, which is all over the press and has been related to me by Thiel Foundation workers, is that students with great potential accumulate tons of student loan debt in college and subsequently, instead of taking on projects that might actually help the world, are financially pressured into working at hedge funds and the like Surely kids as brilliant as these ones sound are getting f…

I reckon you'd need two groups.

I agree. It's not really a valid experiment, which is why I said "might plausibly be" instead of "is", just to acknowledge some connection with the education bubble debate. Though two things to keep in mind for a valid experiment are that from the 100K for the second group would have to be subtracted the costs of university over two years (for me [mostly my parents actually] that's more than 100K), and that at good universities at least extensive mentoring is readily accessible. So it's a reasonable approximation at least.

Re: Peter Thiel Gives Whiz Kids $100K To Quit College, Start Businesses

#46

Post by kenjackson »

_delirium wrote: post #11

I'd be somewhat more interested in a program like this if it were being run by someone I believed actually wanted in good faith to improve education/business, rather than having ulterior political motives. Thiel is quite open that his main motivation is that he thinks universities promote politics he dislikes, so he'd like to destroy them for that reason. He also claims that in doing so he'd improve education, but it…

Actually your theory about Thiel matches mine. In fact several months ago I noted on HN that we'll see a full attack on academia by the right through the 2012 election. Some of it overt, but much of it subtle, e.g., it's not our intellect that makes us a great country, but rather something no one can accurately measure, like our ability to empathize.

Regarding his politics, he's given multiple accomodating interviews to National Review, the founding conservative magazine in the US. And you can just look at his public donation record -- it's more than a quarter of a million dollars -- 100% Republican.

Of course he won't come out and say, "I'm trying to dismantle higher education as part of a larger political agenda", but at least to some (including myself), the evidence is striking.

Re: Peter Thiel Gives Whiz Kids $100K To Quit College, Start Businesses

#47

Post by hugh3 »

veyron wrote: post #43
ryanisinallofus wrote: post #38

Would the reaction be as mixed here if it was PG doing it? Because YC in effect does the same thing right? I enjoyed my college experience and as the first ever college graduate in my family I wouldn't do anything different. Colleges provide something far more beneficial than the shot at FU money. That said, some people are better off dropping out or never going at all. I'm highly suspect of learning how to be an Ent…

PG's stance, at least nowadays, is not to take college students unless they are going to leave anyway. I dont think he would do it in the way that PT is trying to do it. My understanding, having been sucked into that trap myself, is that college debt forces people to go to hedge funds or other lucrative jobs that don't utilize the full potential of some of the brightest college students. If you can give students an o…

college debt forces people to go to hedge funds or other lucrative jobs that don't utilize the full potential of some of the brightest college students

Well if that's the only concern, then Thiel could do what rich people have been doing for years -- donating scholarships to give smart kids a free ride to college.

Re: Peter Thiel Gives Whiz Kids $100K To Quit College, Start Businesses

#48

Post by hugh3 »

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #13

Doesn't seem like that much money to quit college over. You could just go get a job I guess and make that in a couple years or less, if these are really the "whiz kids." Also, I'm sure these kids are very smart but some of those ideas look extremely lofty. Are these kids really at that level in their education and is 100K really even close to enough money to fund a 1-man research lab? I'm just a bit skeptical.

It'll be interesting to see what does happen. Some of these kids do seem rather smart but incredibly naive (hey, reminds me of me at the age of 19) -- what does happen when Asteroid Mining Kid runs up against cold hard reality?

Let me just clag in his whole description: John Burnham believes that the search for new resources has driven exploration, expansion, and innovation—from the discovery of the Americas to the California Gold Rush. Likewise, he believes the key to colonizing space is to make it possible to extract valuable minerals from asteroids, comets, and other planetary bodies. John plans on using his fellowship to develop space industry technologies to solve the problem of extraterrestrial resource extraction.

Really, what can you do to advance space industry technologies under these circumstances? You're a teenager. You have a hundred thousand dollars (aka what Elon Musk spends every four seconds). You know far less about space technology than 99% of the people who work in the industry. And you're very smart, but a lot of people in the rocket industry are very smart. What do you do? Go intern for Elon Musk?

Re: Peter Thiel Gives Whiz Kids $100K To Quit College, Start Businesses

#49

Post by yid »

hugh3 wrote: post #48
dinkumthinkum wrote: post #13

Doesn't seem like that much money to quit college over. You could just go get a job I guess and make that in a couple years or less, if these are really the "whiz kids." Also, I'm sure these kids are very smart but some of those ideas look extremely lofty. Are these kids really at that level in their education and is 100K really even close to enough money to fund a 1-man research lab? I'm just a bit skeptical.

It'll be interesting to see what does happen. Some of these kids do seem rather smart but incredibly naive (hey, reminds me of me at the age of 19) -- what does happen when Asteroid Mining Kid runs up against cold hard reality? Let me just clag in his whole description: John Burnham believes that the search for new resources has driven exploration, expansion, and innovation—from the discovery of the Americas to the C…

Actually in that position, interning for Elon Musk sounds like a great idea, followed by using that $100k to fund living expenses in college and grad school, with the bonus of having a streamlined academic plan and semi-guaranteed dream job when you graduate.
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