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Peter Thiel's unexpected job requirement

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Re: Peter Thiel's unexpected job requirement

#41

Post by tibbon »

I'm sure Peter is a great guy, but I've stopped paying attention to what the newest hype is around what some VC is saying of how you should run your startup and career. Unless they have heavily funded my startup, then I really don't care. It isn't their startup or career. We can't all be them, nor should we be.

We should stop playing follow the leader. Peter's advice will work for many, but not for all. One size does not fit all. Maybe Peter cares about people's university credentials, but when hiring I'll look at each person on a case by case basis as a sum of their parts. There's some great people out there without ivy league degrees, and some terrible people out there with ones. Better to evaluate the stack of history and competency than a single component.

Re: Peter Thiel's unexpected job requirement

#42

Post by yummyfajitas »

jarek wrote: post #39
defilade wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The job requirements and qualifications for an entrepreneur and a hedge fund analyst are so different that it's not necessarily inconsistent

Has Thiel been careful to always specify that his anti-higher-education-in-the-U.S. stance only applies to entrepreneurial people?

Peter Thiel's exact words on the topic:

"The elitist view in the U.S. is that even if people concede that college is not for education, the caveat will be that, well, surely it’s for all the smart people. What we want to suggest is that there are some very smart and very talented people who don’t need college."

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/257531/back-future-pe...

"...are there 20 of those 60,000 who should perhaps not go to college--that does not seem like a terribly controversial statement. That the more talented you are, the more narrow the set of choices you should make? And that if you're a really smart person, the only thing in the world you can do is to go to Harvard?"

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20114584-281/talking-tech-...

Re: Peter Thiel's unexpected job requirement

#43

Post by moocow01 »

It amazes me how many people listen to others without understanding their motivation.

Peter is an investor - if he's able to monetize a model where a group of students drop out of college for a startup and on the whole make his fund money, he will do so. There is no fault in that but don't think he is looking out for the good of anyone but his clients and himself - its not evil - its a business model.

The unfortunate part is that many (but certainly not all) develop these critical thinking skills to question everything in the very institutions he is influencing young kids to drop out of. I know this comes off as "stay in school kids" but I'm more hoping that students will think for themselves and identify their own reason for dropping out before leaping.

Re: Peter Thiel's unexpected job requirement

#44

Post by ticks »

tibbon wrote: post #41

I'm sure Peter is a great guy, but I've stopped paying attention to what the newest hype is around what some VC is saying of how you should run your startup and career. Unless they have heavily funded my startup, then I really don't care. It isn't their startup or career. We can't all be them, nor should we be. We should stop playing follow the leader. Peter's advice will work for many, but not for all. One size does…

I mostly see his name popping up in works by Curtis and similar writers, which makes me wary by default.

Re: Peter Thiel's unexpected job requirement

#45

Post by oldschooltaper »

jbellis wrote: post #3

This is stupid. Do people really think Thiel is personally managing every job opening at every company he's associated with? Non-sequitur "gotcha" reporting at its worst. I expected better from Yglesias.

Well, if he is serious about changing the system, wouldn't it be comparitively easy for him to start with his own companies and lead by example?

Thiel is, first and foremost, advancing his own interests by enouraging students to drop out and pursue startups in which he will have a stake.

He wants to hide this among otherwise valid criticisms of the system. But he really can't.

Unless he's paying you not to attend, you are foolish not to attend university because of what he says (versus your own reasons).

Re: Peter Thiel's unexpected job requirement

#47

Post by temphn »

The job posting itself has already been fixed:

http://www.linkedin.com/jobs/jobs-Investment-Analyst-w-29013...

  Quantitative skills in a field such as computer science, 
  mathematics, statistics, physics, or engineering; no 
  college degree required
Tempest in a teapot. Obviously someone junior in Thiel's organization who didn't get the message, fixed at the speed of light. Now let's see Yglesias, Slate, and CNN issue addendums.

Re: Peter Thiel's unexpected job requirement

#48

Post by ShabbyDoo »

When I was at CWRU in the mid-90's, I was on a student panel which provided large donors (those whose last names were the same as large area companies, mostly) with an opportunity to ask questions of students. Several donors wondered why Case students studied so hard and participated so little in extra-curricular activities. After all, one said, I'd rather hire the interesting, well-rounded student with a 3.0 GPA than the boring one with a 3.7. Several students on the panel explained that many of their peers feared the short-term consequences of low GPAs -- lost scholarships and limited job opportunities. The donors were surprised to learn that most companies (in come cases including their own) would refuse to allow students with less than, say, a 3.5 GPA to even sign-up for on-campus interviews.

Re: Peter Thiel's unexpected job requirement

#49

Post by temphn »

jbellis wrote: post #3

This is stupid. Do people really think Thiel is personally managing every job opening at every company he's associated with? Non-sequitur "gotcha" reporting at its worst. I expected better from Yglesias.

In any case, the job posting has already been fixed:

www.linkedin.com/jobs/jobs-Investment-Analyst-w-2901306

  Quantitative skills in a field such as computer science, 
  mathematics, statistics, physics, or engineering; no 
  college degree required
Thiel actually believes in what he's saying.

Re: Peter Thiel's unexpected job requirement

#50

Post by tedunangst »

Will their former "top tier" universities allow them to return, or give that spot to someone who values it a bit more?

The former. I know people who finished their undergrad degrees after stopping out for years, and it wasn't much of a problem at all.

You could very reasonably drop out, start a company, have it fail, finish school, then work for the hedge fund. There's no problem here.

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