Billionaire will pay 20 kids to leave college and start a company instead

[Liberal_in_LA]

Peter Thiel: We’re in a Bubble and It’s Not the Internet. It’s Higher Education.
Fair warning: This article will piss off a lot of you.

------------

Thiel’s solution to opening the minds of those who can’t easily go to Harvard? Poke a small but solid hole in this Ivy League bubble by convincing some of the most talented kids to stop out of school and try another path. The idea of the successful drop out has been well documented in technology entrepreneurship circles. But Thiel and Founders Fund managing partner Luke Nosek wanted to fund something less one-off, so they came up with the idea of the “20 Under 20″ program last September, announcing it just days later at San Francisco Disrupt. The idea was simple: Pick the best twenty kids he could find under 20 years of age and pay them $100,000 over two years to leave school and start a company instead.

Two weeks ago, Thiel quietly invited 45 finalists to San Francisco for interviews. Everyone who was invited attended– no hysterical parents in sight. Thiel and crew have started to winnow the finalists down to the final 20. They’ll be announced in the next few weeks.

While a controversial program for many in the press, plenty of students, their parents and people in tech have been wildly supportive. Thiel received more than 400 applications and most were from very high-end schools, including about seventeen applicants from Stanford. And more than 100 people in his network have signed up to be mentors to them.

Thiel thinks there’s been a sea-change in the last three years, as debt has mounted and the economy has faltered. “This wouldn’t have been feasible in 2007,” he says. “Parents see kids moving back home after college and they’re thinking, ‘Something is not working. This was not part of the deal.’ We got surprisingly little pushback from parents.” Thiel notes a handful of students told him that whether they were selected or not, they were leaving school to start a company. Many more built tight relationships with competing applicants during the brief Silicon Valley retreat– a sort of support group of like-minded restless students.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/10/peter-thiel-were-in-a-bubble-and-its-not-the-internet-its-higher-education/

[Brickbat]

1. There's been a huge push to get people into college who really aren't interested in it, who would do

better to learn a trade, who maybe even would rather learn a trade or start a business but were force-fed the lie that a college education is a ticket to a middle-class lifestyle.

[Warpy]

6. For decades, any college degree at all would net you a

middle management job, so it did pay of for a while. It's not paying off for a sizable number of graduates now that the economy is in the dumper and it's leaving them in serious debt already, never mind being able to borrow seed money if they do have an idea for a company.

I'm just afraid this "20 under 20" is being selected to form yet another predatory investment company to generate paper profits for the already unimaginably rich.

[rocktivity]

2. Pay your fair share of taxes instead, Mr. Theil

THAT will help the economy even more!

:eyes:
rocktivity

[bbinacan]

3. I like the idea. n/t

[bluestate10]

5. So do I. nt

[aquart]

4. That man is insufficiently taxed.

[Donnachaidh]

7. And I'll bet he writes off EVERY DIME of his challenge

Pay YOUR fair share of taxes instead of a PR stunt dude.

[wickerwoman]

8. Seems like kind of a silly gimmick to me.

Why not just offer the $100,000 to the 20 people with the best ideas for businesses he can find, regardless of whether they're still in school or graduates?

I think the fetishization of the "young genius" is part of the reason we're in this mess. At the internet start-up I used to work at, the CEO would brag in shareholder reports about how young all of his managers were. And it just created a climate of people who didn't really know what they were doing but were all pumped up to try something, anything, whether it was a good idea or not. Sometimes this works- a lot of times it doesn't. Experience does actually count for something.

And I suspect that a lot of what went wrong with the financial industry was the result of hotshot young financial wizards getting a seat at the big boys' table and nobody listening to the veterans.

[Liquorice]

9. Why doesn't he just wait a few years until they graduate, and

then give them the money? I don't get the point of preferring that they not get a college degree. People are enriched in a variety of ways by a college education; I know I was.

[Cid_B]

22. *ZOOOOOM*

That was the point careening off of your head...

[Liquorice]

27. WTF Do you just randomly go around

and insult people you don't know for no apparent reason? What a strange person you are.

[Javaman]

43. There are professional griefers who get no joy in life other than making

other people feel as miserable as they do.

Sorry you had to be on the receiving end of that.

Cheers. :)

[drm604]

10. Here's an even better idea, Thiel.

Wait for them to graduate and then give them that money to start a business. If you think they might be able to succeed as drop outs, then why not wait a few years and up their chances? At least you'll know at that point that they are able to stick with something and see it through.

He's not necessarily doing these kids a favor. If they succeed in business, great, but if they fail then they're stuck with no business and no degree. Graduate first, then at least you'll have that degree on your resume along with the failed business.

Some people seem to have a bug up their ass about formal education and are desperate to disprove it's value for some reason.

[demwing]

13. Its the culture war

educated people are portrayed as condescending, elitist, liberal, effete, snobs...the old "brie and cheese" crowd Bush hated so thoroughly

[drm604]

15. Bush the college grad.

You can't say these people aren't hypocritical can you?
By the way, I hope that I don't come off as elitist and effete if I point out that "brie and cheese" is redundant. :evilgrin:

[demwing]

31. You do know that was Bush's quote, not mine, right?

just checking ... :)

[drm604]

37. Nope

I wasn't sure who said it.

[demwing]

38. Yep, check it out...

http://www.slate.com/id/1008171/

[XemaSab]

32. If they were smart enough to get into Stanford at 18

then they can get into Stanford at 22 after the business either flops or does well.

Just because you leave college doesn't mean you can never go back, and students who are in their early 20s might be more focused than teenagers.

[Safetykitten]

11. Just what the world needs...20 apps.

[Dawson Leery]

12. If they started the work on a degree, why not finish school

then go on to this opportunity. If they drop out and fail at this "opportunity" offered by Thiel, they have no work or a degree. It's a loss/loss.

[demwing]

14. Thiel didn't follow his own advise

He received his B.A. in Philosophy from Stanford in 1989 and a J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1992.

If people want to mimic the success of "self-made" billionaires, they should watch what the billionaires DO, and not so much listen to what they say...

[Dappleganger]

16. Well, that does nothing but support the two things...

1) It takes money to make money

and

2) It's who you know that helps you get ahead.

Most people have access to neither.

[drm604]

17. Excellent point.

:applause:

[Cid_B]

23. I disagree with your #2

These kids are all being chosen based on their merit and likeliness to succeed in his opinion. If anything it is the exact opposite...

[drm604]

26. The opposite being what?

If you have merit and are likely to succeed a sugar daddy will come along with $100,000?

[PVnRT]

39. Not really

Do students at the University of Illinois or Idaho State have an opportunity to participate? No - this is offered to students at Harvard and Harvard only. So, it is a consequence, if indirect, of "who you know."

[Cid_B]

41. You sure about that?

"While a controversial program for many in the press, plenty of students, their parents and people in tech have been wildly supportive. Thiel received more than 400 applications and most were from very high-end schools, including about seventeen applicants from Stanford. And more than 100 people in his network have signed up to be mentors to them."

[supernova]

18. Ignoring the main reason people drop out

Bill Gates is a perfect example. Self-made CEOs drop out because usually by that time their motivations are eccentrically their own. They already want to spend gobs of hours doing their own thing to the exclusion of all else including "proper" goals like college.

This is famously true of many artists. Johnny Depp dropped out of high school because he was too busy playing music to make ends meet.

Thiel seems to be putting the cart before the horse. First comes the passion for the thing itself, then the money. Money by itself is not an inducement to develop a passion.

[grntuscarora]

19. Thiel is

replacing the myth that a college degree guarantees a brighter future with the myth that, with nothing but hard work and a good idea we can all be billionaire business tycoons. It's just as unrealistic as the college myth.
The article points out that many of his hand-picked entrepreneurs are from the ivy leagues and (probably)privileged backgrounds. They'll have soft landings if their businesses fall flat( which many of them no doubt will). Not so for most young kids, who also wouldn't have the advantage of $200,000 in free start up money. I don't exactly understand what his contest is going to prove.

[EC]

20. If he takes all business college kids, I don't mind

I'd rather see them go to college to be doctors and researchers...we don't need any more wall streeters.

[buddysmellgood]

21. He'd be better off giving the money to engineers when they graduate. They need the business training

[MadHound]

24. See kiddies, you don't need those nasty, liberal, egghead universities,

You just need to be one of the lucky few who are fortunate to have a corporate sugar daddy dispense his noblesse oblige upon you.

[Iris]

36. and wouldn't it be more interesting to perhaps fund20 under 20 to quit BUT ALSO fund 20 who graduate

to start their own businesses as well and then compare the results in 10, 15, 20, 25 years?

[Starry Messenger]

25. Thiel went to Stanford.

He started his company with the help of fellow alumni. He was also lucky to get into the business when the field was fairly wide open. All this proves is that you have to have money and connections to start a business in this economy now.

[Kat45]

28. But don't most businesses fail?

I also suspect a pro-business anti-egghead agenda on his part.

[lumberjack_jeff]

29. And we all know that employees never get laid off.

Key to security: leave your fate in someone else's hands. Surely they're smarter than you.

[Incitatus]

34. Yes, and within a year or less depending on your capital.

100k is a lot of money, but to start a company it will limit their choices and that money could go fast.

[Initech]

30. Sounds like a lose-lose situation.

If you start the business and it fails, there's no way you'll be able to pay back on the loans. And if you quit school, you quit school. So that's the way to look at it, I wouldn't take this bet.

[XemaSab]

33. Quitting school isn't like quitting a job

You can always go back.

[Iris]

35. Yes, but going back gets harder as life gets fuller.

Not to mention, sometimes you never really catch up. I used to work with returning students and it was not easy road, even for the smart ones.

[WinkyDink]

40. Money trumps.....the human spirit. Who needs all that Liberal Arts crap that makes you think?

"THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US; LATE AND SOON"

THE world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

1806.
Wordsworth.

[Javaman]

42. Fine. The kids should figure out a way to create a front company that loses money

and bilk the billionaire.

Paying someone not to continue an education is just fucking stupid.

How about paying the kids to create a business that capitalize on their education?

We live in a fucking stupid nation.

[Brewman_Jax]

44. Reminds me of the 2am infomercials

"Buy my shit, I'll make you rich!" My brother fell for that, tried to play real-estate mogul, failed, and paid dearly for it.

No one ever talks about the 9999 that didn't make it big, or make it at all, only the 1 super-win.