100K For College Students To Drop Out And Launch Startups
October 24, 2010
Author 
In PayPal co-founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel is offering an interesting proposition to young, driven innovators: $100,000 to drop out of college and launch startups. Directly from his fellowship site:
From Facebook to SpaceX to Halcyon Molecular, some of the world’s most transformational technologies were created by people who stopped out of school because they had ideas that couldn’t wait until graduation.
This fellowship will encourage the most brilliant and promising young people not to wait on their ideas. The Thiel Foundation will award 20 people under 20 years old cash grants of $100,000 to further their innovative scientific and technical ideas.
I applaud Peter for extending some of his success to inspire a new generation of entrepreneurs. This is really a win-win situation to those selected. If they launch a company which starts to experience rapid growth, they win and begin a path down the road less traveled. If they fail – they still win. That failure would provide a growth opportunity far more valuable than any education you’d receive in an ivory tower. We learn from our failures more than our successes.
And yet, not everyone sees it that way. Slate editor Jacob Weisberg seems upset by this idea:
Where to start with this nasty idea? A basic feature of the venture capitalist’s worldview is its narcissism, and with that comes the desire to clone oneself—perhaps literally in Thiel’s case. Thus Thiel fellows will have the opportunity to emulate their sponsor by halting their intellectual development around the onset of adulthood, maintaining a narrow-minded focus on getting rich as young as possible, and thereby avoid the siren lure of helping others or contributing to the advances in basic science that have made the great tech fortunes possible. Thiel’s program is premised on the idea that America suffers from a deficiency of entrepreneurship. In fact, we may be on the verge of the opposite, a world in which too many weak ideas find funding and every kid dreams of being the next Mark Zuckerberg. This threatens to turn the risk-taking startup model into a white boy’s version of the NBA, diverting a generation of young people from the love of knowledge for its own sake and respect for middle-class values.
I’ll second Valleywag: since when is giving six figure donations to college students “nasty”?
This is an unfortunate reaction to an innovative idea. First of all it’s a blanket statement to proclaim the worldview of all VCs as narcissistic. In fact, Peter’s motivation here is not to “clone himself,” rather to make change. Also – Slate has a bias against Peter’s ideologies as outlined in the rest of the article, so they clearly wouldn’t see anything positive in his influence on a new generation. But no matter what you think of Peter, it’s unfair to say this. He is providing entrepreneurs a rare and remarkable opportunity. Opinions of Peter aside we should be praising this, not demonizing it. Our society should, as the default, encourage those who have had success to nurture that in the next generation. If done in a non-traditional way I say all the better. Breaking any perceived rules of society is a good thing and is how we make change.
Jacob also seems disgusted with the fact that Peter’s plan would, and I quote “divert a generation of young people from the love of knowledge for its own sake and respect for middle-class values.” What? Someone will have to connect the dots for me how presenting an open and creative young mind with revenue to pursue a dream and perhaps change the world would hurt someone’s love of knowledge. For entrepreneurs, personal experience and independent learning trump institutional education. There is never a substitute for real, hands-on experience.
Who cares if Peter is encouraging 20 promising kids to “disrespect middle-class values” and temporarily put off education for an opportunity. They can finish college anytime, what’s the difference when that happens? Because so many follow the same process a different experience fosters a unique mindset, rather than churning out graduates who have had the creativity wrung out of them and simply follow rules because that’s what they were taught to do.
Watch Sarah Lacy interview Peter and hear his rationale for doing this in the first place (email/RSS readers may need to click through):
Jaclyn replied | Oct 25, 2010 (3 comments)
This is completely ridiculous. I’m not trying to weaken the fact that many college students do have innovative ideas that may drastically improve our society, however; an education is most important. Encouraging young adults to put their education on hold, or out of the picture completely, simply in an “attempt” to launch a “maybe” successful idea just sounds bewildering. If examples are needed for how important an education is, look at how many grammatical errors are in Thiel’s preposition. I count more than three errors within a simple two sentence announcement, and Thiel is a graduate from Standford University. With today’s technological advances such as texting, instant messaging, Facebook chatting, etc. already drastically decreasing the proper use of the English language, (a necessity in ALL aspects of the professional world) I would assume that encouraging ANY child, regardless of intelligence or of their groundbreaking ideas, to drop out of school is extremely ill-advised.
Adam Singer replied | Oct 26, 2010 (563 comments)
You’re missing the point, I think. An education isn’t about a piece of paper. Proper spelling and memorization of facts is nice but that’s not it either. It’s an ongoing part of life that involves personal growth, not grades or pieces of paper. Peter’s offering provides a unique experience offering this, as noted in the reasons above.
Lisa replied | Oct 28, 2010 (1 comment)
I’m sure Thiel will screen the ideas of the people applying for the fellowship. They’re not going to just pick 20 kids with sub-par ideas. The people receiving this opportunity will probably be the most likely to succeed out of the applicants and may have never had the chance to pursue their dream otherwise. Even if these students finished college, they would likely be too far in debt and/or not nearly enough income upon graduation to begin their start up with the resources they will be given.
It’s always good when someone becomes a success and tries to help others do the same. College is great, for most people. If the start ups do not succeed, they will have only lost a year or so out of their education and will be able to say that they gave it a shot. Who knows? They could emerge from college with an even better idea based on their failed attempt.