Peter Thiel's College Dropouts: How's That Working Out?

Neg: Exhaustive review of individuals showing that nothing of value (except riding on existing trends) can be shown from any applicant, except potentially in the case of the Solar Energy startup, in which money was used to hire PhDs with actual domain knowledge.

Pos: Saying that everything great is under NDA and that the solar energy stuff is cool, that the youngin' in question has impressed PhDs enough that they want to work for him. No real info, expecting you to trust that good stuff is in the works.

confluence3• 14 years ago

Very nice. I only have one question for you - what do you think is more reasonable - or are you reserving your judgement? Pos/Neg/Neutral?

Jd8• 14 years ago

I believe the title is wrong. Virtually none of the applicants were "dropouts," although some were accepted to prestigious colleges and decided not to go. The program was envisioned as an alternative to college, and most applicants were pre-entry.

jere• 14 years ago

If that's true, the "College thing he doesn't miss:" detail is also highly misleading, since it too implies they used to be in college.

PakG12• 14 years ago

If you look at the bios of the kids, a bunch of them already had degrees and were in higher level university programs before they entered Thiel's program.

milesskorpen• 14 years ago

It was a bit amusing to read that section, since I think a lot of the comments were highly off-base about a college experience (at least my college experience).

paulhauggis• 14 years ago

The type of person that will succeed without college won't really need it because they have the drive to succeed.

Most people aren't like this.

roc• 14 years ago

The whole endeavor is lousy.

With regards to 'success', for most people the education you get in college is secondary. What's of primary importance is networking and having that degree on your resume to get you in the door. [1]

But networking and having something on your resume that gets you in the door is provided automatically (and arguably in more effective doses) by rubbing elbows with Thiel and likeminded millionaires and billionaires and being featured in news articles.

So the 'success' of the participants should be expected to be equivalent-to-better than if they went to college just due the design of this stunt.

And it will prove nothing about whether college is useful or not in the general case. Because you can't scale "hang out with Peter Thiel and likeminded movers-and-shakers" beyond a tiny class each year.

[1] Which isn't to say that what you learn isn't important. It absolutely is. It just doesn't have much bearing on your business/monetary-axis 'success'.

randomdata9• 14 years ago

To be fair, it is not exactly clear if college scales either.

Around 25% of the working population have a college degree and about 50% have post-secondary training of some kind. Only 5% of the working population earn more than $90,000 per year and the top 25% start earning at only $45,000 per year or so. It's a livable income in many places, but that is not what we generally consider successful in business.

marquis• 14 years ago

I disagree - I think it's a cultural issue and perhaps you speak specifically of people in the upper OECD. Much of the world runs or works for a small family business where getting enough money to feed and house your family drives you to succeed within the limits of your education and life situation.

enraged_camel• 14 years ago

It seems to me that the validity of your statement hinges on the definition of success.

wtvanhest2• 14 years ago

I wish the question was:

Any traction yet?

rather than:

Any revenue yet?

trimbo2• 14 years ago

How is traction measurable?

[edit] What I mean is, we've witnessed startup after startup with millions of users that go bust. The only way I know of to measure "traction" of a _business_ is revenue.

acgourley2• 14 years ago

But there are also plenty of businesses with millions of users that only get revenue later in their life. For the first few years, traction besides revenue is certainly acceptable evidence of progress.

dave_sullivan• 14 years ago

I kind of crashed the awards ceremony where they introduced all the fellows and I ended up meeting a bunch of them.

I was surprised how many were straight out of high school (no college). They generally struck me as bright but immature (not in an obnoxious way--more in a "what do you expect, they're 17!" kind of way.) Most of the businesses didn't strike me as businesses so much as super ambitious senior projects.

I really do agree with the general idea behind the program--college is a ripoff because you can learn the same stuff and build a strong network without going. I think the program's aims might have been better served by having these kids work for a startup (maybe one of thiels?) with an investment guarantee after 3-5 years or something.

mmaunder• 14 years ago

It'd be interesting to consider the whole income statement of each individual, rather than just the annual revenue, which no longer has the $35K per year expense of college, while still gaining a significant education.

TimGebhardt• 14 years ago

Anyone else find it funny that 2 of the 5 are working on education related projects?

vph2• 14 years ago

This model does not scale!

Few college dropouts are bright up to be selected carefully to go through this process. To do this en mass would be a disaster.

johnnyjustice• 14 years ago

Incorrect, a bunch of students with failed/successful experience is better than a bunch of students who go to college, because they were "suppose" to.

I think its best to opt for more freedom, when it comes to picking who they want to spend their adulthood. These new paths aren't for everyone but that's why we should consider this an alternate solution, not a one size fits all one.

vph2• 14 years ago

>Incorrect, a bunch of students with failed/successful experience is better than a bunch of students who go to college, because they were "suppose" to.

Not all college students attended college because they are "supposed to". Even for those who attend college because they are "supposed to", it is arguable that they will end up being better than choosing not to go to college. If someone has no idea what he wants to do in life, it's arguable that going to college is better than not going to.

The truth is that people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg are rare. Most people need a formal education. It's arrogant to think that you can design better alternative than an educational framework that has existed for years to educate the mass.

The Thiel's model works well for a small number of bright youngsters, who might exceed their potentials through a customized training program, instead of going to college to have an off-the-shelf training program. If more and more people drop out of college, or even skip college to do this, it's going to blow up in his face.

dinkumthinkum• 14 years ago

I thought these wunderkinds were supposed to change the world. :) No one argues that these are bright people, the problem is I think this "fellowship" was a lot of hype to promote an idea that ... I don't know, where's the fruit? Sure, there are autodidacts, but as I always say, they are outliers.

I do find the education focused ones interesting, in "oh boy" sort of way. We're just taking something as dogma (anti-college) and just running with it, where we're going I don't know. There's no "there" there. I feel like this view is so prevalent in our world of computing because there are really 1) many outliers that are great autodidacts and brilliant programmers (but not as many as is claimed) and 2) there are also many that believe they don't need any kind of education because they saw a YouTube on making RoR apps and follow JS blogs but I don't think the rest of the world is really like this.

randomdata9• 14 years ago

It has only been one year. College graduate-bound students still have at least three more years to go until they can even consider changing the world. Years five and six will be much more interesting.

The way I see it, these people are not foregoing education. They are just receiving it through other, non-traditional, avenues. That does not mean they can learn faster than anyone else though, so it is no surprise that they are going to take a few years to learn before they can start seeing accomplishments.

jeffdavis3• 14 years ago

"We're just taking something as dogma (anti-college) and just running with it, where we're going I don't know. There's no "there" there."

You could say the same thing in reverse: it's just opting out of the pro-college dogma.

Colleges have a huge amount of overhead like land, buildings, bureaucracy and enticements like fancy campuses and perks; much of it for students studying soft subjects with a lot of grade inflation. It's all paid for by government incentives and a trillion dollars in student loan debt.

A lot of studies say that college degrees are still worth the cost, but I'd like to know if such studies control for the self-selection of college students. Is it that college puts people on the path toward success or that people on the path toward success tend to choose college? Also, do the various majors independently justify their costs, or are political science majors lumped with engineers?

Today, I'd still probably choose college if I were 18 again (in engineering or one of a few other subjects). But ten years from now, I hope there are better alternatives available (which will make the colleges better, too), and college will just be one option that can survive without government subsidy.

Such a change will also improve the liberal arts and soft subjects at colleges. Right now, such subjects are diluted by a lot of people that just don't know what to do, and think that those subjects are easier and leave more time to party. When those people are no longer encouraged by easy money and enticed by fancy campuses, or fear the stigma of not going to college, then the softer subject classes will be left with serious thinkers.

forensic• 14 years ago

Good autodidacts learn from the best, and the best are always academics.

ruggeri• 14 years ago

I met one the Thiel fellows. His employ? He gives talks about skipping college. It was inane; I don't think I've ever met a more transparent circular argument.

I've also met people who dropped out or never went to school, and did amazing stuff during that time. Nobody paid them to do it, though.

The problem with children is that they haven't been around the block. Giving them money just for being young and eager only further distorts their warped, child's view of reality. Put me down as not a believer.

shantanubala• 14 years ago

Not to mention, college is one of the easiest ways for a person to meet other smart people. Not everyone can afford to be in the Bay Area. A smart student can get a full-tuition (and often more!) scholarship at a solid state university with a little bit of effort.

Join a few interesting clubs, hang around the dining halls, and pretty soon you can find other hackers, or even just awesome people to talk to.

If we're truly going to be investing in teams rather than just investing in ideas, I would place at least some additional value to people who met and worked together in college. It's an experience that's hard to replicate in most places in the US, and seems to allow for strong teams to pop up.

10char• 14 years ago

Very interesting that they didn't mention James Proud's Giglocator exit. Maybe they didn't reach out/he decided not to participate in this article, but if you're going for the revenue angle then it should be noted[1]

There are also two fellows in YC right now and are literally days from launching their startups.

(disclosure: I'm a Thiel Fellow)

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2012/06/20/skip-school-s...

bentlegen• 14 years ago

This reads like Giglocator existed before Proud was selected as a Thiel Fellow.

> Proud’s early attachment to GigLocator led to his decision to forego a university education long before the Thiel’s 20 Under 20 program had even been thought up.

Aloisius• 14 years ago

The vast majority of startups fail and it wouldn't surprise if the vast majority of these kids failed. As long as their lives haven't been ruined by the experience and they come out as well adjusted people, I say more power to them.

Disclaimer: I dropped out of high school to start a company almost 20 years ago.

witoldc• 14 years ago

If this is the best that the top 24 pics from universities can do, I most certainly wouldn't call this a good criticism of traditional education.

Peter Thiel's College Dropouts: How's That Working Out?

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