81–90 of 115 posts
He was a 19-year-old 4th-year neuroscience Ph.D. candidate at Stanford University (Andrew Hsu) Does that mean he'd get his PhD as a 19 or 20 year old? That sounds like a record to me. That's crazy, in a good way.
I remember a professor at Princeton who got his first PhD at 17, but he was bored, so he got his second at 19. One was in physics, the other in mathematics, but I don't remember the order.
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…
Topics which were not raised, at all, not even in the slightest: Universities having a left-wing influence.
I'm genuinely shocked at the amount of vitriol and conspiracy-theorizing which Peter Thiel is getting over this.
Success is a relative term, and i don't have the data, but it seems that the role of luck is bigger in entrepreneurship than it is in science. It will be interesting to see how many of them go on with the program, how many go back to school and how many succeed (although the sample is small).
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…
He's dedicated to the cause of eliminating death and aging. That's good enough for me. In order to eliminate aging and death, you must have an educated and ambitious populace who can mobilize resources to wage war on mortality. Yes, he's a techno-libertarian, but like all great techno-libertarians he's interested in killing what kill human beings and crystallizing human potential. Aubrey de Grey even mention libertar…
He may not have put 2 and 2 together there yet.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
donating a quarter million for him is not a substantial capital commitment. Most of his donations were the maximum allowed by US law. I wouldn't even call Thiel's goals fundamentally political You don't work with the National Review, the Cato Institute, and consistently donate (and to only one political party) if its not fundamentally political. he's trying to shape society and throws money at things that he believes…
90+% of Google's political donations go to a single party. Is their business fundamentally political? [1] http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/14/technology/google_democrats/
Second, I think I'm using the word political here to talk about ideological interests, rather than self-interested ones.
But let me presume that link was about the actual company donating to the democrats. Setting aside the issue of Thiel, because I don't know much about him, I think its harder to classify businesses as 'fundamentally political' because of their more singular motive of profit. Businesses, at least those on a massive scale like Google, have a clear goal in mind when donating to candidates: procuring legislation in favor of themselves. Thus, their choice doesn't seem 'political' because it can be boiled down to self-interest. If they were giving lots of money to democrats, it could probably be explained by the democrats being more easily 'bought' on something Google wanted. I wouldn't say that an oil company is 'political' for giving money to republicans instead of environmentally conscious democrats--that's just self-interest to me.
Meanwhile, I think a person donating is much more likely to be doing so because of ideological reasons. However, the greater a person's stake in the outcome of legislation, the more likely their motive is not 'political'. For example, if billionaires don't want a crackdown on tax havens, its probably because of self-interest rather than some ideological commitment that taxation is unjust. Given this, Thiel's donation record alone could just be evidence of self-interest. However, as per the posts around this discussion, frequent interviews with the National Review, Cato, etc., plus the fact that I think its much more probable that individuals are political than companies, makes me think that the Google/Thiel comparison is inaccurate.
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…
I was there during some of those dinner-table conversations. Topics that were raised: Number of for-profit and non-profit founders who didn't get all the way through college; how successful founders and interesting people seem to be missing the "imitation gene" (Thiel's term); how the standard system filters out different kinds of innovative people at each step of the process; how making it possible to bypass a singl…
Very interesting experiment and I'm curious to see what comes out of it but I motivation for going to college isn't all about making money (which is what starting a business is all about). Aside from education, College/University changes people in immeasurable ways. Usually it's where you meet friends you have for life, find the person you want to marry, discover your political and philosophical self, explore vastly…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was there during some of those dinner-table conversations. Topics that were raised: Number of for-profit and non-profit founders who didn't get all the way through college; how successful founders and interesting people seem to be missing the "imitation gene" (Thiel's term); how the standard system filters out different kinds of innovative people at each step of the process; how making it possible to bypass a singl…
Can you elaborate on what he meant by 'imitation gene'?
People who engage in standard trendy forms of "nonconformity" that everyone immediately recognizes as "nonconformist" are called "dangerous" or "edgy" or "innovative". People who lack the imitation gene are called "weird" or "crazy".
That's probably not exactly the way Peter Thiel would phrase it - I'm uncomfortable speaking for others - but I don't think he'd disagree.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I find it really disingenuous to paint someone as intelligent and quirky as Thiel with the "bah, republican" brush. In terms of where he's putting his money, bear in mind that he's a multi-billionaire; donating a quarter million for him is not a substantial capital commitment. I wouldn't even call Thiel's goals fundamentally political; he's trying to shape society and throws money at things that he believes will bend…
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/10/18/what-s-wrong-with-silicon...
Some nice quotes from Thiel:
“I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
“Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women—two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians—have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron,”
And a quote from the article: "The public, he [Thiel] says, doesn’t support unregulated, winner-take-all capitalism, and so he won’t support the public any longer. "
"Thiel is the lead backer of Sea-steading, a movement to create law-free floating communes and explore space, with the avowed aim of creating new POLITICAL structures even farther offshore. "
I don't see how its not obvious that Thiel's motives have an extreme conservative ideological bent. "The extension of the franchise to women" -- WTF?!
And I should have looked on Wikipedia earlier "he founded The Stanford Review, now the university's main conservative/libertarian newspaper".
What else do you need?
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…
Hi, I'm always a bit confused whenever people talk about how the Khan Academy is revolutionary. How is it significantly different than the MIT Open Courseware? Is it just felt that the quality of the lectures is so much better?
Genuinely curious about your experience!