Thiel lures young entrepreneurs from education with money

Peter Thiel is a high-tech billionaire who was one of the first investors in Facebook. He is known for his flamboyant lifestyle and over-the-top libertarian ideology. He raised eyebrows last month when he announced the Thiel Fellowship, a system of $100,000 grants awarded to college students who want to sector high-tech breakthroughs without waiting for graduation. Article resource – Peter Thiel offers $100,000 to bypass school for entrepreneurship by Personal Money Store.

What is the Thiel Fellowship?

20 entrepreneurs that are younger than 20 could be awarded up to $100,000 in grants with Thiel’s Thiel Fellowship system. In a press release, Thiel said some of the innovations that changed the world the most were created by college dropouts who had “ideas that could not wait until graduation.” Thiel himself made billions with PayPal, the Clarium hedge fund and Facebook. He talked about Elon Musk who sold Zip2 to Compaq for $307 million after dropping out of higher education to start it.

Thiel adored and hated for package

There have been good and bad reactions to the $100,000 offer from Thiel for kids to drop out of education. Jacob Weisberg at Slate said Thiel is simply feeding his enormous ego by encouraging kids to emulate him and that his offer deflects higher education students “from the love of knowledge to the love of cash.” On the other hand, Nick Saint at Business Insider said “it’s ridiculous to suggest that most people who go to higher education do this from the love of knowledge for its own sake.” Then Reason’s Jesse Walker explains that those in the Thiel Fellowship program won’t really be emulating Thiel as he has a graduate degree.

A university viewpoint on Thiel

Higher education, directly confronted by the Thiel Fellowship, has also weighed in. Dr. Jeff Cornwall at Belmont University posted an invitation for Thiel to come visit Belmont’s programs for experimental learning. Cornwall wrote that he would introduce Thiel to some student and alumni entrepreneurs who came back to school after they dropped out when they realized what they were missing.

Citations

Slate

slate.com/id/2271265/

Business Insider

businessinsider.com/

Reason

reason.com/blog/2010/10/17/jacob-weisberg-vs-the-libertar

Thiel Fellowship

thielfoundation.org/index.php?option=com_content and view=article and id=14:the-thiel-fellowship-20-under-20 and catid=1 and Itemid=16