
Peter Thiel's Dropout Club - bhaumik
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Rich-Mans-Dropout-Club/151703/#
======
kszx
It's definitely controversial if seen from an American perspective.

But it's much less controversial if seen from a German perspective. So perhaps
you need to understand Thiel's German background first. Germany offers many
successful alternatives to university.

Now combine it with Thiel's libertarian views: Apparently, Thiel tries to set
up alternatives to college privately.

===

EDIT (for clarification):

I'm not saying that Germans would like this particular experiment. But they
usually agree that university is just one out of multiple desirable options to
gain a qualification.

In other words, I'm saying that thinking about alternatives to university is
very German. This leads me to the idea that the motivation for this experiment
may have its roots in Thiel's past.

Saying this as a German.

~~~
visakanv
Reminds me of Shopify's Tobias Lutke– also German, also took an off-beaten
path. I transcribed a Keynote that tobi once did.[1] Let me dig up the
relevant bit:

> Within my little world, within this school, the most obvious/profound
> thought I had was that I needed Air Jordan sneakers to be part of the
> popular kids.

> That seems really silly from the perspective of adults. I was lucky- I got
> out of school (you can leave school after 10th grade in Germany- you can
> choose to do an apprenticeship with a company for a couple of years and then
> join University- really good system.)

> Middle of the 90s, Germany realises computers are getting more important,
> and we have no clue how to educate computer programmers. Science faculties
> of universities? Or address in a more traditional, hands-on craftsman kinda
> route? Lucky- one of the first class of kids to join this kind of thing,
> then I joined Siemens, and met a really great mentor there.

[1]
[http://www.visakanv.com/marketing/tobi](http://www.visakanv.com/marketing/tobi)

UPDATE: I remembered something else [2]:

"I dropped out of school when I was 16 years old. School was not for me. To
me, computers were so much more interesting. Right or wrong, I felt like I
wasted my time there and my real education was starting when I came home. I
lost respect for the institution and of course this meant that I no longer
bothered to put any effort into it. They diagnosed me with all sorts of
learning disabilities and started to medicate me. I wanted to leave it all
behind."

"I decided the best thing to do was to drop out and start an apprenticeship as
a Fachinformatiker - computer programmer. This might sound like a stupid
decision to people in North America, who often go to College or University to
get a degree in something like computer science, but in Germany leaving high-
school for an apprenticeship is not out of the ordinary. It is called the dual
education system, and it is likely one of the main reasons for Germany’s
success."

[2] [http://tobi.lutke.com/blogs/news/11280301-the-apprentice-
pro...](http://tobi.lutke.com/blogs/news/11280301-the-apprentice-programmer)

~~~
bootload
One question: In what companies do Fachinformatikers' work and what kind of
problems do they work on?

Added as a read,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9020335](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9020335)
great post.

~~~
omnibrain
I work for T-Systems, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom. I work in a team that
does SAP. So most of the problems are "CRUD". ;)

------
logn
Peter Thiel has replaced one flawed institution with another. College works
mostly because it gives you prestige and connections. Thiel's fellowships work
on the same level. If you want to skip college and start a business, then do
it.

~~~
_delirium
That could be all the goal is (though this is speculation). Thiel has said on
a few occasions that one thing he particularly dislikes about universities is
their politics: he perceives them as an obstacle to libertarianism, since in
his view they promote left-wing politics. If he can replace a university with
something similar, but with different politics, that could achieve his aims,
if his aims are in large part political.

~~~
nhaehnle
The real question is: Would Thiel's idea be successful of you scaled it up to
millions of people?

This is one of those times when I wish it were possible to run controlled
experiments in the social sciences.

------
jerluc
Myself being a college dropout (though not from some prestigious university),
this all sounds a bit foolish to me:

> Before the crowd of technology enthusiasts, he sketched out his plan: grants
> of up to $100,000 each for up to 20 people under the age of 20 to "stop out
> of school" and pursue their passion.

Maybe I'm just being sore and jealous, but my decision to drop out was not for
the prospects of pursuing my passions. Rather, it was based purely upon
economic and temporal constraints: in order to go to school, I needed a ton of
money; in order to get money I needed to work full-time; in order to work
full-time, I needed to take less and less classes. The fact that I later ended
up pursuing my passions was basically out of necessity, not because some
investor said he'd been thinking about it for a year and thought it might be
better to leave, and oh by the way here's $100K.

~~~
meric
Maybe others are not as smart and enlightened as you and foolishly spending
money their family could ill-afford on full-time classes that would grant them
a career that can barely pay off the costs involved in their education - and
Peter Thiel announcement of $100k reward for dropping out could be a wake up
call.

~~~
morgante
Ironically, the vast majority of Thiel fellows were studying subjects which
put them on a straightforward track for getting a lucrative career (thus
easily justifying the costs involved).

The Thiel Fellowship would be simultaneously much more interesting and
controversial if it targeted students at second rate private universities
where the value proposition of studying is much murkier.

~~~
CmonDev
I doubt all those CEOs and VCs would be interested in someone outside of the
MIT etc. circle.

------
akhilcacharya
I do think its interesting - his dropout club is filled with individuals that
dropped out of already elite and prestigious institutions. Many of them have
already signaled their intention to return to school after two or three years.

------
geebee
My initial worry about dropping out is what you don't learn - things that are
abstract but perhaps very valuable. Things like real analysis, literature,
classics. That's just a worry, though. I was encouraged to see that this was
addressed in this article. I've been accused of not valuing the arts when I
asked (on a different forum) if it's really worth spending 4 years and running
up tens of thousands of dollars in debt (perhaps more) to study it. Hey, you
can do that for songwriting too. Trust me, I love songwriting, but I think it
would be beyond nuts to go 120K in debt to major in it. The existing system is
broken to the point where we need a new way.

I'm not sure what to make of Wadhwa's criticisms. "Right now we should have
had a dozen billion-dollar companies, if what Peter Thiel said was true," he
says. Instead, he sees small businesses selling small products, and teenagers
teaming up with seasoned executives because they lack the management skills
they could have learned in college."

I'm not sure of the numbers - is this in reference to the 24 people who were
funded? Falling short of a half dozen _billion_ dollar companies in a short
period of time means what Thiel said "isn't true"? Well honestly, I'm not a
huge fan of Wadhwa, mainly because I find he does things like calling others
(like Thiel) "disingenuous and dishonest" when he should really just say he
disagrees and explain why. Even so, this seems strange enough that I'm
figuring there is some context I'm missing.

The bit about management is weird, too. It's a bad thing young people are
teaming up with with seasoned executives to learn the management skills they
would have learned in college? Huh. I suppose there are good extracurricular
opportunities in college (clubs, newspaper, and so forth), but working with a
seasoned executive seems like a pretty great opportunity to me.

------
pitt1980
The thing that kills me about Thiel's critics is how much they ignore the risk
that going to college poses.

obviously it can be done at alot of different price points, but Vivek Wadhwa
teaches at Duke and Stanford, what sort of career outcome ROI do you need to
justify attending those school if you're not attending at a heavily discounted
price?

what percentage of grads does Mr Wadwa suppose achieves those career outcomes?
especially if they're not a STEM major?

espcially considering that that debt typically isn't dischargeable?

depending on what sort of debt burden you're looking at, taking that on to
attend college seems far riskier, if nothing else, you've locked yourself into
a game of high paying/ high stress career or bust,

which seems silly to lock yourself into at 18, or at least, highly risky

~~~
stegosaurus
This is something I find quite odd about US tuition.

In the UK tuition fees are rather high now (though not quite US levels). But
they are repaid, at a 'marginal tax rate', only if your income is above a
certain level (17K or 21K at present. For comparison minimum wage full time is
roughly 13.5K.

So if you take on tuition debt, and then never secure highly paid work,
nothing happens. If you decide to live in your car, you can, the debt gets
discharged.

From what I know about the US system it seems as if repayments just continue
no matter what. Am I missing something? It seems like serfdom baked in to the
education system.

~~~
pitt1980
there are some debt replayment programs for low earners in the US as well,

but student loan repayment will be a serious drag on any attempt to build
wealth for most people who take out loans

I'm of the opinion that most people don't have a good grasp on what the
marginal difference in outcome needs to be to justify taking on student debt

------
pastProlog
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4seubKdRs4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4seubKdRs4)

~~~
psbp
It's a shame that Christopher Welch died. Funniest character in that show, and
he had great performances in Synechdoche New York, The Master, etc.

------
ThomPete
Surprise, surprise. So nothing really changed. Network is still what matters.

~~~
lumberjack
I've always thought this was primarily a means for Thiel to infuse his network
with the newest batch of promising entrepreneurs.

------
msaravanan
What interests me is that he has managed to openly ask students to drop out of
mainstream education without much public outrage. Is it a sign that the
society at large has perhaps stopped associating failure with dropping out?

Or is it because the people who joined the fellowship were too different to be
called "normal" already?

~~~
morgante
I'd say it's probably because Thiel fellows overwhelmingly come from elite
universities and privileged backgrounds.

Nobody worries that somebody who dropped out of Harvard is a "failure."
Especially if they get $100k out of the deal.

~~~
gutnor
There are also alternative paths for people with good connections from their
background. I remember seeing brochure in one of the business hotel I went for
work.

It was about a University type establishment but with no major or minor or
hard science, instead a mix of business and philosophy curriculum. Because, I
paraphrase them, it was more important for the future leader of the world to
be attuned to the world and understand the real things in life such as
philosophy. They were also conveniently located in a south american country
and looked more like a resort than a place of study.

If you follow that kind of route without the proper connection in your family,
you chances are basically nil. Those are the place you would send your kid
before kick starting him/her at "the bottom of the ladder", i.e. some upper
management position with 6 figures starting salary, working on "ideas" and
strategy.

Basically, some people are born successful. They can afford to make different
choices.

