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Drop Out and Innovate, Urges VC Peter Thiel
An anonymous reader writes "The San Francisco-based founder of PayPal and co-founder of Facebook is offering two-year fellowships of up to $100,000 (£63,800) to 20 entrepreneurs or teams of entrepreneurs aged under 20 in a worldwide competition that closes this week. With the money, the recipients are expected to drop out of university — Thiel calls it 'stopping out' — and work full time on their ideas. '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,' Thiel says. 'This fellowship will encourage the most brilliant and promising young people not to wait on their ideas either.' Thiel says the huge cost of higher education, and the resulting burden of debt, makes students less willing to take risks. 'And we think you're going to have to take a lot of risks to build the next generation of companies.'"
Doesn't really happen that often, from what I've seen. More often, mature students returning to school are returning because they realize the value of an education on account of having a hard time without it. Additionally, university gives students something that is hard to come by in the working world: an appreciation of how many diverse perspectives there are in the world. Don't get me wrong - success stories happen. But for every Steve Jobs and Peter Thiel, I bet you there are a hundred or more drop-outs (stop-outs?) with nothing to show for their sacrifice. I think it's irresponsible of him to take the highest achieving students and encourage them to leave university.
I'm a student. I write iPhone apps.
Doesn't really happen that often, from what I've seen. More often, mature students returning to school are returning because they realize the value of an education on account of having a hard time without it.
Not a big surprise. The ones doing well don't really have a reason to go back. I dropped out to go into IT over 20 years ago. I did well. I am at a company where the CEO dropped out to start thew company. We have a hard time hiring people, as the degreed people have no skills. so we bring in interns. Generally, we hire from that pool. Often before they graduate. There is more than one path to success. I have found that drive and hard work matter most, degree or not.