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Peter Thiel: I’m Really Not Crazy; I Just Want to Help Some Kids

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Re: Peter Thiel: I’m Really Not Crazy; I Just Want to Help Some Kids

#21

Post by Eliezer »

fleitz wrote: post #16
paul wrote: post #9

It's interesting how angry some people get if you suggest that not everyone needs to follow the traditional educational path.

It's not very surprising at all. People have invested a lot of time and money in it, and each student is worth about $100,000 to a university. So if you speak out against it of course there is going to be a backlash, a) from the people who invested in it and b) from those who profit from it. They're just talking their book.

It's not the time and money they invested, which is a sunk cost, but the prestige they keep on deriving. Paying people to stop out of college is an attack on the prestige you think you're getting from your college degree.

Re: Peter Thiel: I’m Really Not Crazy; I Just Want to Help Some Kids

#22

Post by Eliezer »

_delirium wrote: post #7
gonehome wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They themselves might be, but some of the notable people they've invested in have dropped out. Granted for Zuckerberg it was Harvard he dropped out of.

Zuckerberg is actually the only one I can think of, though I assume there must be at least one or two others. But if you look through Thiel's portfolio companies, they're stuffed to the gills with people with degrees, often multiple degrees, from top universities. PayPal was all people with degrees, LinkedIn is people with degrees, Palantir was founded by a PhD, etc.

Singularity Institute founded by someone who went autodidact after eighth grade...

Re: Peter Thiel: I’m Really Not Crazy; I Just Want to Help Some Kids

#23

Post by sayemm »

ohashi wrote: post #13
sayemm wrote: post #5

my favorite line: "I question how closely education links with entrepreneurship." it doesn't. i think competitive fields or sports (physical or mental) are the best test of an entrepreneur's DNA

source?

that quoted line is in the interview w/ peter thiel

but regarding sports... the title of chapter 6 in kevin o'connor book, "The Map of Innovation" (http://amzn.to/atJrRi), is: "The Right People: Hire Smart Athletes"

he defines athletes not as jocks per se, but as people who have a high pain threshold, a fighting spirit, and a fear of losing. he also says that dwight merriman, his co-founder/cto at double-click, is one of the best "athletes" he's ever known.

Re: Peter Thiel: I’m Really Not Crazy; I Just Want to Help Some Kids

#25

Post by cool-RR »

paul wrote: post #9

It's interesting how angry some people get if you suggest that not everyone needs to follow the traditional educational path.

I agree. However some of the reason for the anger may be that anger sells more Slate magazines than intelligent discussion would.

Re: Peter Thiel: I’m Really Not Crazy; I Just Want to Help Some Kids

#26

Post by joshkaufman »

Eliezer wrote: post #21
fleitz wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not very surprising at all. People have invested a lot of time and money in it, and each student is worth about $100,000 to a university. So if you speak out against it of course there is going to be a backlash, a) from the people who invested in it and b) from those who profit from it. They're just talking their book.

It's not the time and money they invested, which is a sunk cost, but the prestige they keep on deriving. Paying people to stop out of college is an attack on the prestige you think you're getting from your college degree.

There's also an endowment effect involved - the more time/energy/money it costs to obtain a credential, the more people resent losing the perceived benefits.

Re: Peter Thiel: I’m Really Not Crazy; I Just Want to Help Some Kids

#27

Post by pjscott »

_delirium wrote: post #6
browsemybooks wrote: post #2

I find it interesting that those proclaiming that students bypass education (including Tony Hsieh) are products of the top universities.

Thiel himself has two degrees from Stanford. He appears to have liked higher education enough to keep going back for more!

Does that invalidate his current opinions? People can change their minds.

Re: Peter Thiel: I’m Really Not Crazy; I Just Want to Help Some Kids

#28

Post by pjscott »

andrewtbham wrote: post #24

the article is pretty bad.. http://www.slate.com/id/2271265/ it paraphrases his views as saying.. "giving women the vote wrecked the country"

Ugh, what a nauseating hatchet-job. It's such blatantly distorted, emotionally-loaded propaganda that it hurts to read. I can understand someone wanting to criticize Thiel's plan, but that article makes him out to be a moustache-twirling cartoon villain.

Re: Peter Thiel: I’m Really Not Crazy; I Just Want to Help Some Kids

#29

Post by _delirium »

pjscott wrote: post #27
_delirium wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thiel himself has two degrees from Stanford. He appears to have liked higher education enough to keep going back for more!

Does that invalidate his current opinions? People can change their minds.

I suppose it boils down to not really believing that he's changed his mind. His expressed views on academia are quite consistent over the past 25 years. He wrote frequently against academia while he was getting degrees, but continued to stay there and finish two degrees anyway. Take a look at late-80s and early-90s issues of the Stanford Review, the right-wing newspaper he co-founded.

His main beef with academia is that he feels it's one major impediment to libertarian politics, so he wants as few people as possible to be exposed to it. Perhaps he also now genuinely believes that finishing his two degrees was a mistake, and it's actually in kids' own best interests to drop out of school. But I'm skeptical that that, rather than politics, is the real reason, as I usually am when someone's professed beliefs: 1) don't match their own actions; yet 2) conveniently match their politics.

Re: Peter Thiel: I’m Really Not Crazy; I Just Want to Help Some Kids

#30

Post by kiba »

_delirium wrote: post #14
paul wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not at all surprising if you consider that it's the expected thing to do for upper-middle class kids. Presumably having gone to those schools also gives them knowledge of what the experience provides and how it did or did not help them start a business. I doubt it's some kind of evil plot to keep kids out of school.

I'm not sure it's knowledge so much as hope: they didn't have the guts to skip school and just start a business, but they hope someone else will. Whether it'll work or not is an open question, but I would've had more respect if they took that route themselves, rather than paying other kids to do their experiment for them. (I doubly distrust Thiel in particular on this, because not only did he not take this advice him…

I have understood that Thiel thought college is the right option for million of kids. It's in the article.
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