Slashdot Mirror
Inside Peter Thiel's Genius Factory (backchannel.com)
In 2011 the Thiel Fellowship "was created to prove that a college degree doesn't matter," writes Backchannel, saying it's now evolved into something much more Silicon Valley. mirandakatz quotes their article:
What began as an attempt to draw teen prodigies to the Valley before they racked up debt at Princeton or Harvard and went into consulting to pay it off has transformed into the most prestigious network for young entrepreneurs in existence -- a pedigree that virtually guarantees your ideas will be judged good, investors will take your call, and there will always be another job ahead even better than the one you have.
This year's class are all established entrepreneurs -- some of whom have already graduated from college, according to the article, although having at least "stopped out" at some point remains a requirement for the program. "It's offensive, the way people ask about it," one fellow tells the reporter, who summarized his belief that "To go back [to Stanford] would imply personal failure. Why would he ever do that? He had his network started already, and clearly the opportunities came through the network... This network, he contended, was far more valuable than any he could build in college -- even at Stanford."
This year's class are all established entrepreneurs -- some of whom have already graduated from college, according to the article, although having at least "stopped out" at some point remains a requirement for the program. "It's offensive, the way people ask about it," one fellow tells the reporter, who summarized his belief that "To go back [to Stanford] would imply personal failure. Why would he ever do that? He had his network started already, and clearly the opportunities came through the network... This network, he contended, was far more valuable than any he could build in college -- even at Stanford."
It's nothing more than a common watering hole for all the already-successful young entrepreneurs to all gather. Let's see, basically get a bunch of already successful young people and throw more money at them and give them even more opportunities to succeed... and they do it!? *rolls eyes*
Trump won because the democrats put forward the weakest possible candidate, who nevertheless had a comfortable lead, but did all the wrong things and lost.
The "Russian hackers", of which we have yet to see anything resembling evidence, were not the problem.
Hillary's image, her atrocious handling of the email scandals, and the timely "help" from the FBI were much more relevant.
Just like the Bernie bros told ya.
Can we whine about the editors continually offering up tech billionaires for hero worship?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
What this really represents is yet another way to attack education, especially public education. If you've actually been a teacher, then you should know that the most important thing about the best students is to avoid holding them back. Thiel is just exploiting this reality to make public education look bad: "See you don't need an education so the government should stop taxing rich people like me to educate you bums."
The people Thiel is picking for this program would have been extremely successful even if they had gotten more of that traditional education. However, if you take the very best and brightest with the highest motivation, and then you make sure they have the resources to learn whatever they need for their work, they are almost certain to succeed. In this case, I'm sure the house (Thiel) is even rigging the game, pumping in extra money and guidance to make sure there aren't any failures because the REAL point is to make education look like the failure.
This is just an extension of the dismembering of public education that has been going on for many decades. The best students are streamed into elite schools and most of the students are given obedience training to make them docile wage slaves, easily handled prison inmates, and obedient consumers who will buy the right soap and vote for the right political candidates, just the way the ads tell them to behave.
Worked pretty much exactly as they wanted it to and now it's time to harvest the whirlwind. Most American workers can't compete, and it's only going to get worse going forward. Much worse.
But the richest 0.1% will do better than ever. Government of the corporations, by the lawyers, for the richest 0.1% shall rule the earth?
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Sure, to make a large amount of money, you do not need a real education. Just have a talent to rip-off people.
In order to qualify as "genius" in modern times and be able to actually contribute to society, as opposed destroying wealth (as so many of those that amassed personal riches routinely do), a PhD in your chosen field is about the minimum. Without that, you will never get deep enough into a subject to really understand it and to really understand the difference it makes to really understand it.
Methinks this thing is about as valid as "Trump University".
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
...tells me everything I need to know about Thiel and the people selected for this group.
Thiel set out to disrupt the existing educational institutions. He suggested he could do a better job at training a small cohort of gifted individuals, and that once free of the shackles of a conformist degree-making institution, these fellows would be capable of jumpstarting human progress.
So, you know influencers - Big Fucking Deal - I want people who know how to do things, and get them done on schedule, on budget, and done right. I don't give a shit if you know how to get to know other people who also only know how to get to know other people.
Furthermore, I consider it essential that when I make a reference to a major historical event, piece of art, literature, music, you understand why that reference applies to our current conversation. I also consider it essential that your education allows you to draw upon a variety of knowledge in order to make good decisions. And you simply will not get that education by working 18 hours a day on whizz-bang.bullshit-me-to-death.com, because all the buzzwords in the world don't contribute at all to the benefit of society.
My company does not exist solely to make me rich, it exists to allow me to explore ideas which can be turned into real physical products which actually help people in some way, usually labor saving, sometimes life saving (or enhancing), but never parasitic. Because *anyone* can be a parasite, and pretend to "manage influencer relationships", whatever the hell that means.
Trump won because white men didn't look the other way, which would be a very relevant percentage.
White men didn't look the other way or stay apathetic, because they were incited and angered.
They were incited and angered, because some religious anti-white-male Jihad/Crusade kept insulting them, degrading them, and being condescending towards them for the past decade or more.
Condescending self-righteous hate against white males turned them from quiet organisms into a "I'm throwing a brick out the window, have my middle finger all of you shits" retaliatory force.
Those same collectives who are so passionate about hating white men more than the Nazis hated Jews, are now still insulting white men and wondering why the tactic of still poking them with sticks doesn't make them vote their way.
And because of that unbridled, reckless, self-righteous, condescending crusade against white males, they are going to keep losing.
So keep the insults going. Keep blaming white males for anything and everything. Keep degrading them. And they will decide "since i'm branded as evil in such a generalized way, i might as well abide and become".
Ah so denigrating white males is bad but Mexicans, women & black people have to keep on sucking it up.
Thanks for clearing that up. And fuck you very much.
FYI, the white voter is losing the demographic race; unless the GOP manages to continue their rather diligent voter suppression, several of the Solid South will be swing states in a decade.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Stop ragging on millennials. This is a much older pattern where the establishment elite reinforce their own success. Most millennials I have met have been good people.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
And the reality is, that for 99.9% of what you do, you don't need anything beyond 1920s physics. As one of my electrical engineering profs used to say:
If you're using more than Freshman Physics, you're thinking too hard
Just last week I had to explain to a landscape contractor reworking my backyard why my water level (20 feet of clear tube) was much more accurate for measuring the tilt in the water feature than his digital, 2' long level. His level showed "0 degrees" - flat. My water level showed a 1" slope over a 14' span, which is enough to cause the spillways to not flow evenly. He was shocked you could use a tube and WATER! to measure a level over such a distance...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!