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.
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.
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.
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.
I think the "Pos" side should be discounted as it is obviously Thiel centered PR from an employee. I think the "Neg" side should be the default, since one should not presume value until value is demonstrated. That we are still in a sense "early stage" indicates that we don't have a full picture yet and so shouldn't presume that we do.
I have mixed feelings about the program in general. Entrepreneurship programs maybe useful for promoting excited entrepreneurs, but by no means are an adequate replacement for researchers or higher ed in general. In many of these cases, the entire premise is hogwash. Technical innovation comes from depth in a subject area, and you actually have to study something before you can innovate in the context of it.
This is most obvious in the case of the Uncollege movement -- the person and movement are exceedingly shallow and provide nothing of value except as a publicist for other trends in online education. I'd hate to think that his applies across the board, but suspect that it is more true than not.
"Technical innovation comes from depth in a subject area, and you actually have to study something before you can innovate in the context of it."
I think you are making three assumptions that can be disputed:
1. The only place to gain a depth of knowledge is a traditional university; and
2. The best time to gain this depth of knowledge is between the ages of 18 and 22; and
3. You need to innovate to have a successful business (where "innovate" is something more profound than just being creative).
Youth is the time when people are most able to adapt, learn, and change their path in life, so it's no surprise that K-12 and colleges would like a monopoly on the nation's youth.
But entrepreneurship teaches things that colleges stifle, such as independence, following your own path to success on your own schedule, and learning the consequences of your decisions quickly. And there's no law saying you can't study on your own while starting a business, or study later if the business goes south.
We're already in a situation where a bachelor's degree is watered down and doesn't offer any differentiation. Many students feel they need to get a doctorate to differentiate themselves, or in some cases, just to get in the door. In many situations, it's not a question of whether to spend 4 more years in school after highschool, it's whether to spend ten more years. It's no surprise that people simply say that the opportunity cost is too high, and do something else.
I would argue that the problematic conflation exists in the original program, insofar as the 20 under 20 program is often described as a potential replacement for higher ed. As far as I see things, there are a whole bunch of extra factors which are much more extensive than your three categories and which require a much more rigorous analysis.
For example, how do we foster innovation in specific subjects? For instance, we presumably know that with respect to atomic physics, this requires highly knowledgable people who have spent a lifetime studying very abstract subject matter, and this is most likely to be facilitated by institutions not governed by a profit motive. This is not quite as clear for innovation with respect to alternative energy, which may require any of the following: developing new types of energy, developing the technology which employs the new type of energy, or bringing an existing technology to market. The skillsets required for all of these areas are different, as is the institutional setting in which they will foster. If you take a very brilliant person who could ostensibly be working on harnessing new potential energy from the atom and put him in a program focused on entrepreneurship this would be a total mis-utilization of talent and, consequently, a huge step backwards. This is to say that business and entrepreneurship are only a solution for a certain set of problems and these are not the only problems.
Also, certain subject areas require super-specialization. So you need to start early and stay focused. The means for doing this will probably depend on what the subject area is. Is "higher ed" the solution for a would-be master electrician? No, probably some combination of vocational school and apprenticeship is. Likewise for a pianist. You go to a specialized school for a specialized subject.
Standard higher ed is an easy whipping boy insofar as it is often the default solution for many people who don't know what they want to do with their lives, many of whom don't actually end up taking advantage of the resources available to them and learning all that much. In a certain sense this might be a fault of the institutions themselves, including massive inflation in costs, multiplication of institutions, and failure to actually teach anything of value. However, the fact remains that for certain cases, there are no obvious better options than higher ed.
In any case, I think higher ed should be looked at as a set of tools rather than a solution to a specific problem, least of all the question "what should I do with the next four years of my life?" If you look at it that way, you might find that the tools that are available for you, including potentially interacting with a number of bright and diverse people and broadening your experience in various unexpected ways will be beneficial in many ways.
Case in point: I was chatting with a professor at Harvard yesterday who studied French and German before focusing on Arabic, and he was lamenting the fact that he had not had the chance to study more Sanskrit (he did study a bit) or Urdu or get his Persian up to snuff, all of which he though would have deepened his understanding and approach to life, which have some relationship to his scholarship. Of course, all of these things take time, and usually they take some form of institutional support, but as far as I see it they can be valuable if they expose you to certain ways of thinking about the world that you might not experience otherwise.
For that reason, I think you are right about entrepreneurship as a possible thing to do alongside your studies or even to replace your studies, but it very much depends on the person and where they are trying to go with their life. There are a lot of very hard problems that cannot be solved in the context of a startup and indicating to the youth that this is the best option may deprive them of valuable life experience.
As for the specific question of age, I agree that there is no set time to do anything in life. There are, however, natural patterns, insofar as people are not usually ready to leave the home and exist on their own until sometime in their late teens. What they do at that point probably should depend on their talent and proclivities. In that sense, I do think that Thiel's initiative may be right for some people. It is, nonetheless, billed as a solution for all sorts of problems for which it is not (much like the gazillion online education initiatives).
> It is, nonetheless, billed as a solution for all sorts of problems for which it is not
I have never had that impression from Thiel himself, though others have certainly spun it that way. He seems very much in favour of traditional formal education, unless your life goals are to have a career; in which case he promotes focusing on that instead.
The problem, as you describe, is that many people enter college for four years of their life and come out having gained nothing. Four years of being in the working world would have put them in the same standing, plus they'd have valuable experience to propel them into better jobs. They aren't there for the positive reasons to be in college, they are there because they don't know anything else and that is unfortunate.
There really is no one solution for everyone, and Thiel seems to be promoting that by showing there are other options. The only effective way to do push that on the masses is to attack the idea that college is the "one true way."
Four years of being in the working world would have put them in the same standing, plus they'd have valuable experience to propel them into better jobs.
Four years of being in the working world would have had them working in the kind of job one could get with a high school education and no experience. I see a lot of people say they'd rather hire employees with four years of experience than hire straight out of college, but I don't see many who are hiring high school graduates for those first four years.
> Four years of being in the working world would have had them working in the kind of job one could get with a high school education and no experience.
Which is the exact same situation a college graduate who put nothing into their education will be in, just several years later. You can leverage your time in a post-secondary school to move immediately into a better job in the future, but it is not the default.
In the meantime, the high school graduate has taken an entry level job and applied their own educational pursuits to move up the ladder at work and after four years is taking on the same kinds of jobs that someone who worked hard in college is.
The moral is that learning takes time and effort. There are no shortcuts, but there is no clearly defined path either. I find it a little disturbing that this article thinks these people should be overnight successes after just one year. Let's revisit them in ten and see where they stand. I expect they will be doing just fine.
In the meantime, the high school graduate has taken an entry level job and applied their own educational pursuits to move up the ladder at work and after four years is taking on the same kinds of jobs that someone who worked hard in college is.
You conveniently forget what kind of employer is actually likely to hire people who just finished high school.
I am not sure how the exact job is relevant, really. Every job has problems that can be solved in new and creative ways and that's where you start to make your mark.
To appeal to the local crowd: If you end up as a barista and, unsatisfied with your efficiencies, you go home and write a program that solves the optimum way to prepare the different kinds of coffee you now:
a) Are a more productive and therefore more valuable employee
b) Have a product that could be worth quite a bit to your employer, and perhaps the competition too
c) Have professional experience writing software using algorithms that the average professional programmer cannot even utilize
The catch is that you have to actually do it. Your typical high school graduate who does not go onto college generally did not go onto college because they do not have the drive to go over and above like that. That skews the statistics in such a way that it makes it look like having a degree matters.
I'm not dismissing your thorough reply, but HN can only support a certain depth of discussion.
I think we agree more than disagree here. I strongly agree with the idea that college should be seen as a set of tools and not the default choice. I think we can also both agree that alternatives need to be developed, otherwise college will remain a default.
I guess our disagreement is over the claims versus effectiveness of Thiel's alternative in particular.
> since one should not presume value until value is demonstrated. That we are still in a sense "early stage" indicates that we don't have a full picture yet and so shouldn't presume that we do.
Couldn't agree more. Until evidence is confirmed by multiple neutral third parties the negative (random) hypothesis holds precedence until such a time as evidence falsifies it. No presumption - merely rational scepticism there.
> I have mixed feelings about the program in general. Entrepreneurship programs maybe useful for promoting excited entrepreneurs, but by no means are an adequate replacement for researchers or higher ed in general. In many of these cases, the entire premise is hogwash. Technical innovation comes from depth in a subject area, and you actually have to study something before you can innovate in the context of it.
You perfectly illustrate the problem with one minded thought (as in capitalism > socialism || libertarianism > socialism).
As usual a rationally weighted mix is usually best under complex situations.
I think Thiel was probably creating a program with a knowledge of the PR the initiative would generate without much thought to long-term outcomes. Obv. he is a smart guy with plugins to higher-ed, and clearly someone who believes in the positive possibilities of innovation. In that sense, he is someone I would like to collaborate with.
That said, he may have shot himself in a foot here in picking people who were good from a short-term PR perspective yet will blow up and look like idiots in the long run. I heard of Dale Stephens before, but didn't take him seriously until Thiel sponsored him. Then I subscribed to his Facebook and blog email feed. What a joke. The whole thing is tailored for a bunch of angsty underachievers and provides zero positive value.
In this sense, I think Thiel has also done himself a disservice by pandering too much ultra-libertarian tech crowd which wants to see everything privatized -- the ultimate goal is a "Halliburtinization" of the US, where all governmental and public functions are provided at speculatively higher efficiency by the private sector.
Obviously, as the Halliburton saga in Iraq illustrates, this is very rarely the actual outcome. Enrons and their ilk create private monopolies on markets and spike the price to their own benefit.
This sort of short-sighted approach to higher ed is just a symptom of a similarly flawed way of thinking about the world that emphasizes profit (a short-term metric that is rarely the most important), instead of the other values which can be fostered within the context of higher ed. In this sense, I think the East coast Ivy League establishment often does a better job than Stanford in emphasizing some of these other elements -- for example, the library at Stanford positively sucks and it is very difficult to find the books necessary for anyone who reads widely (Cal is a bit better, but in general Californians seem not to read very much).
In any case, I think Thiel needs to step up his game a bit. Initiatives are needed to make better, more well-rounded people, rather than more little entrepreneurs who want a quick buck at age 20. In his book on Stanford educational system, he appropriately references Caliban and the need to "chain the beast" so-to-speak, but it seems that he hasn't taken his own lessons to heart.
the ultimate goal is a "Halliburtinization" of the US...
You could just as well call it the "Swedenization" of the US, since Sweden has adopted the same model for many govt services considerably more extensively than the US. (E.g., Sweden has privatized about 10% of their school system.)
They seem to do alright, but then again they also don't go starting too many wars.
You could call it that, but given that the US track record so far is closer to Halliburton (i.e. the aforementioned Enron case) and not Sweden, it seems more appropriate to refer to what has actually happened rather than what people wish would happen.
I'm a mentor; officially for two fellows, informally for another 6. Atop this, they move in my circles. It's a pro-bono relationship -- I'm working with them because I'm excited about them and what they're doing.
In that case, what do you mean by "the inside" ? Presumably you have some sort of privileged access to information, including that which is currently under NDA. If you aren't receiving funding from the organization, what exactly is your relationship?
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
What is "a bunch" ? 30% ? I still don't think it makes sense to refer to them as dropouts unless over 50% were enrolled in a college at the time of application and left a higher-degree program in order to do the program.
Sorry if I wasn't clear. I wasn't saying this is why we can call them dropouts. I was trying to say here's more reason why they shouldn't be considered dropouts. And specifically, I was adding to the refutation for the "college he didn't miss thing".
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).
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.
>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.
Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Steve Jobs all attended college. They just didn't finish. Yet, I think they all derived some value from the time they spent in college.
Education is valuable for many reasons, but need is a pretty strong word. Larry Page and Sergey Brin probably wouldn't have become who they are without their education, but they are rare exceptions on the other end of the spectrum.
Does the average person destined to work at an average job at an average company for average pay really need one?
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.
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.
[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.
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.
> "But there are also plenty of businesses with millions of users that only get revenue later in their life."
No. No. NO. This is one of the most common stories told in the Valley, but it's also an immense case of confirmation bias.
How many companies with millions users had no revenue for a long time and then became immensely successful later on with a viable monetization strategy?
Google. Maaaaaybe Facebook, the jury is still out on that... aaaaaand that's about it.
The overwhelming, typical case for the "no revenue, all traction" business is death, an acquihire if you're lucky. The fact that there exist a few (by a few I mean one or two) huge outliers does not represent 'plenty of businesses', nor does it represent some kind of trend. Traction-first business with no revenue model baked in have always been the longest throws in software business.
So no, traction is absolutely not an acceptable replacement for revenue when representing a business' viability.
A year after getting $100,000 in seed money, they should have some revenue. Maybe not a lot, probably not profitable, but they should have some sales. Worst case, they should be right on the edge of releasing their product.
By year 2, no revenue would be a complete disaster for this program. Having 1 in 6 or 1 in 10 make it would also be a disaster.
Is the goal for Thiel to see a quick return on his investment? Or is it set these people up for a better career in the future? I have always understood it to be the latter.
From what I have interpreted, Thiel believes that just getting out into the world and getting to work will put you as good, if not better standing than someone who went to college with respect to future income and employment opportunities†. That doesn't mean they are going to be millionaires on day one. They still have much to learn, like anyone else. One year later doesn't really tell us anything about the success or failure of his program.
† within reason; you are not going become a doctor without the right credentials and he openly speaks to that.
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'.
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.
This disappointment is based on an ancient view of the world - that those with post-secondary educations are abnormally high achievers, and thus one would expect greater than average compensation.
This hasn't been true for at least 3 decades. Post-secondary training of some sort, whether in a skilled trade or a degree program, is critical even if your ambitions do not stray further than "strictly middle class".
Instead of wondering why those with post secondary education aren't rich off their asses, I'm much more concerned about why 50% of the population doesn't have any post-secondary education whatsoever, and how in the hell we expect to keep this population employed and competitive with that foundation.
In my case, I simply was not allowed to study in any post-secondary school. I applied to many, but was rejected from them all. Higher education is not accessible to a large number of people.
I have never found it to be limiting to my career though. In fact, I feel I am in a much better position because I was able to use those four+ years more effectively doing my own thing which has made me more marketable than a typical college grad.
According to [1], 93% of small business owners earn roughly less than $200,000. and 74% earn less than 100K.
Business owners are 10% of the working population, so only 2.6% percent of the working population earn more than $100,000 by owning a business.
And considering the fact that many wealthy business owners do have a degree(lawyers, dentists, etc.), college seems the more scalable way to wealth.
And even if you consider high end of earners , many of the high earners(ceo's, tech entrepreneurs, medical and legal professionals) do have a college degree.
Business owners, like the general working population, are a mixed pool of those with degrees and those without. Given how many business owners earn less than $100K, including those with degrees, it further highlights my point that having a degree doesn't really give an advantage to finding financial success.
> (lawyers, dentists, etc.), college seems the more scalable way to wealth.
Less than 1% of the population have professional degrees. Those with them may have an advantage due to the artificial supply limits created through legislation, but the fact their numbers are so low demonstrates again that it really doesn't scale.
False. There's a glut of lawyers. For the good paying legal jobs, it's insanely competitive. By that I mean "oh crap, you better be at least borderline brilliant and incredibly hard working"
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.
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.