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Inside Peter Thiel's Genius Factory (backchannel.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the founding-a-founders-factory dept.

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."

75 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. Genius my ass... by rs1n · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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*

    1. Re:Genius my ass... by Casandro · · Score: 1

      Yes, particularly since running a "successful" business only requires a certain minimum level of "cleverness" and relies much more on business connections.

      Just look at Research in Motion (aka Blackberry). That company is largely run by idiots which chase the iPhone and contradict their main claim (security) by cooperating with everybody on breaking their devices up to a point where they send your e-mail login data to a central server.

    2. Re:Genius my ass... by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 1

      Even so, creating such a watering hole has value if it helps expand the networks of those entrepreneurs and connect them to investors. It's the one piece of advice I give young introverts (and would have given a younger me): network, because you'll find it useful in pretty much any white collar job, and if it doesn't come naturally, then you can learn with some effort.

      But then: "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 sounds extremely unhealthy; those investors are setting themselves up for another Theranos or (the way things are looking) Magic Leap.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    3. Re:Genius my ass... by haruchai · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "And, as someone else pointed out, this place doesn't create geniuses, it only collects them. Take average kids and see how much better they do here, and if they turn out geniuses, THEN you can call it a genius factory"

      ^^^^^THIS, 100%^^^^^^^

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    4. Re:Genius my ass... by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 1

      i.e.: don't be an introvert

      It's hard not to be an introvert if you are one, but even as an introvert you can still work at being somewhat successful in the sort of things (networking, socializing) that come naturally to extroverts. Point is: as an introvert you won't only have to work at being "social" , it is likely something you won't enjoy doing all that much, and thus tempting to put off or ignore completely.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    5. Re:Genius my ass... by plopez · · Score: 2

      I was going to throw in the description "an intellectually inbred" organization where no real innovation will come from. Innovation usually comes from imaginative outsiders in the arts and sciences. This is just a mutual admiration club that will reinforce the current establishment.

      Remember, innovation and entrepreneurship is not the same thing. Starting a business and getting funding is not the same as developing new technologies.

      --
      putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
    6. Re:Genius my ass... by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      It has value to those who are in it. Just like any cabal.

      But if anyone is trying to pass this off as Capitalism 4.0 or a universal panacea they're selling snake oil.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  2. Re:In before whining about Thiel backing Trump... by rs1n · · Score: 1, Troll

    Well, like Trump, Thiel is basically taking credit for something he didn't really cause: the success of young entrepreneurs even though many of them were already successful prior to being part of the Thiel Fellowship.

  3. Re:In before whining about Thiel backing Trump... by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    And like most Slashdot readers you are opining on the subject before you even read the full article - which notes the program didn't start out like that at all.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  4. Re: And THIS Is Why Trump Won! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  5. Re:In before whining about Thiel backing Trump... by Black+Parrot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Can we whine about the editors continually offering up tech billionaires for hero worship?

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  6. Yet another attack on public education by shanen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:Yet another attack on public education by gtall · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Unless you'd like to succeed in physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, statistics, economics, computer science (not programming), electrical or chemical or mechanical or civil engineering, law, medicine, architecture, etc.

      In short, if you are good at cherry picking and gluing stuff together around the edges of hard work that others have taken the time and money for the deep training that requires math and theory, then you might succeed in making money. Standing on the shoulders of giants requires the giants actually be there.

    2. Re:Yet another attack on public education by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      NO; youÃre qdocile zqge slqve becquse[1]

      I'll come in again.

      No, you're a docile wage slave because you lack any reading comprehension skills at all.

      [1] BTW, if anyone knows how to stop Win 8.1 randomly changing keyboard layouts, can they tell me?

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    3. Re:Yet another attack on public education by mbone · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Unless you'd like to succeed in physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, statistics, economics, computer science (not programming), electrical or chemical or mechanical or civil engineering, law, medicine, architecture, etc.

      Gosh, I wonder how humanity ever survived learning and training these concepts for hundreds of years without spending $100,000+ on it.

      For most of human history, becoming a scientist required that either you be wealthy, or that you find a wealthy patron. For most of human history, there were not very many scientists, and scientific progress was very slow. If we go back to the first condition, we can expect to obtain the second condition as well.

    4. Re:Yet another attack on public education by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      No. The most likely difference was that you took a technical subject, so you were too busy receiving a 'vocational education'* to be properly indoctrinated.

      * As we are constantly reminded by liberal arts majors: University is for brainwashing, not for job training.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    5. Re:Yet another attack on public education by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      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.

      If that is the purpose of public education, then it needs to die a quick death.
      If you are a teacher and that is what you try to do, then you should be fired immediately.

      You speak as though kids were dogs. Education is not 'behavior training.'

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    6. Re:Yet another attack on public education by geekmux · · Score: 1

      just what we need more retard business people with no education running everything.

      To clarify the purpose of this concept, those "retards" will own the business.

      Then they will start pulling all those educated "smart" people out of the unemployment line to run the business.

    7. Re:Yet another attack on public education by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      The question wasn't how I can change it; I know that (it's Win-spacebar).

      The question was to stop Winduhs changing it, so I don't fucking have to change it back if I go for a piss and the screensaver kicks in.

      Common sense would indicate, would it not, that someone generally will be quite aware of when he wants to change it? It's difficult to plug in an external keyboard by accident.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    8. Re:Yet another attack on public education by shanen · · Score: 1

      I'm responding on the theory that you are a victim of the kind of bad education that I described. Specifically, you don't seem to read well.

      Rather than actually respond to your misunderstandings, which would be basically to repeat what I already wrote, I'm just going to ask you to reread my comment. If you are still unable to understand it, then you should ask questions about the parts you cannot understand. If you still think you disagree (and that is the apparent tone of your reply, even if there was no substance there), then state your disagreement clearly. (Apparently it would be too much to request civility in your response, but that's probably another deficiency of your training.)

      I will expand on one point regarding teaching. When I first started teaching I thought there were two important aspects: (1) Knowledge of the topic, and (2) Skill in the techniques of teaching. I was partly right, because the great teachers have (3) Ability to inspire. Great teachers handle the entire spectrum, but I tended to focus too much at the bottom, and I accepted my kids as they were, including their motivational levels. I was lucky enough to have had quite a number of great teachers over the years, but I realized I was never going to get to their level, so in a sense it was a relief to go back into industrial research.

      I suppose the part that is most relevant here is how I was lucky enough to get some great teachers even in my days at a public school, because the answer was money. Accidental money. My folks shopped around and picked a large school district that was just being developed, so they had LOTS of property tax revenue and few students. I have heard that during those years it may have been the second richest public school district in the country on a per student basis, and even though most of the money was being invested in buildings for the rapidly growing student population, they still had (in those ancient days) enough money to be extremely competitive for the very best teachers.

      --
      Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
    9. Re:Yet another attack on public education by shanen · · Score: 1

      If I ever got a mod point, I'd give one to you. Probably "insightful" in that case. Pretty sure you are wasting the rationality on a Libertarian holier-and-smarter-than-thou fanatic.

      I would have worded your point slightly differently, in that for most of human history the vast majority of people were engaged in subsistence agriculture (or subsistence hunting and gathering before that). Scientific progress depended on the accumulation of the tiny surpluses of large numbers of workers, many of whom actually were slaves. Most of the accumulation was done via various forms of taxation.

      The Libertarian view of history starts with Ayn Rand. They live in a peculiar fantasy.

      --
      Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
    10. Re:Yet another attack on public education by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Right. Because owners never meddle, they just let the professionals get on with doing their job.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    11. Re:Yet another attack on public education by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Gosh, I wonder how humanity ever survived learning and training these concepts for hundreds of years without spending $100,000+ on it.

      Not the point. The point is that nowadays when yo go for a job you're competing against people who do have that bit of paper. It's the educational arms race.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  7. Greed and stupidity by gweihir · · Score: 1, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:Greed and stupidity by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      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.

      The whole 'PhD' thing is locked down in thick layers of conformity. You need to 'play well with others' in order to work your way through post-graduate studies. And that whole mess is locked up by climbers who've made academia an insular elite network.

      Sure, to make a large amount of money

      Are you resentful because you chose the academic track and instead of leaving the campus to live a life after graduating, you stayed within the insular ranks? Too bad.

    2. Re:Greed and stupidity by gweihir · · Score: 1

      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.

      The whole 'PhD' thing is locked down in thick layers of conformity. You need to 'play well with others' in order to work your way through post-graduate studies. And that whole mess is locked up by climbers who've made academia an insular elite network.

      Sure, there are issues. But in actual reality, there is no alternative to it if you really need to get deep into a topic.

      Sure, to make a large amount of money

      Are you resentful because you chose the academic track and instead of leaving the campus to live a life after graduating, you stayed within the insular ranks? Too bad.

      Complete, fail at Ad Hominem. Pathetic. While I am still doing applied research as part of my job and some teaching on the side, I am in a pretty well-paid industrial position. Your argument is as clueless as it is worthless.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    3. Re:Greed and stupidity by Lodragandraoidh · · Score: 1

      You don't need a PHD to get 'deep into a topic.' You just need motivation, time, and resources. Explain to me how that is not an alternative?

      Just having a PHD doesn't make you smarter than everyone else in the room - just like having any other certification for that matter. I've met geniuses that didn't have any education beyond their primary education, and I've met stupid people holding advanced degrees wasting oxygen and space.

      I'm also not anti-intellectual. Expanding your intellect does not require the blessing of a dogma enshrined ivory tower clan either. Can higher education be valuable on many levels - absolutely it can. Is it overused today, causing people to take on too much debt when their carreer doesn't afford the ability to pay back the investment within a reasonable period of time? Absolutely. There are limited formal means for people who are autodidacts to gain parity with the formal higher education mechanisms for vetting employees. There needs to be more opportunities for everyone who can perform along these lines - not just an elite few at the top.

      Finally, hubris leads to nemesis - which is really the crux of this whole discussion on multiple levels.

      --

      Lodragan Draoidh
      The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
    4. Re:Greed and stupidity by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Sorry, but I did not say doing a PhD does give you deep insight into a topic, I said that realistically it is the only way to get that deep insight if you otherwise have what it takes. Many people with a PhD do not and basically wasted their time. I hope you can see that there is an implication here and it has a direction.

      The thing is that for almost all people, acquiring the "motivation, time, and resources" needed is not feasible any other way.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  8. Re:And THIS Is Why Trump Won! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    hating white men more than the Nazis hated Jews

    Provide evidence of systematic and direct genocide of... I'll be be generous... 3 million white people. I have popcorn.

  9. More junk at the expense of knowledge by cjonslashdot · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So there are more entrepreneurs, creating more IOT gizmos and more Googles and more plastic that ends up in landfills, pushing us faster towards the Singularity. Is that being a successful person? A successful society? I didn't go to college and grad school to get a job or create a network: I went to become educated. I learned things that I could not have learned on my own because formal education provides rigor and a support structure that forces you to continue through it. Today, at 60, my biggest regret is that I did not finish my PhD and I am thinking about going back to school to study what I love - physics. Besides family, knowledge is all that has meaning to me at this point.

    1. Re:More junk at the expense of knowledge by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      100% correct. Universities are for education (and meeting hotties), not "building your network". Most of what these guys are doing is ultimately worthless. Do we really need another big data startup?

    2. Re: More junk at the expense of knowledge by nomadic · · Score: 1

      Exactly! All it does it take naturally talented people who could be doing something important and significant and turn them to doing something as boring as making money. Who needs space exploration and cancer research when you can get rich off making an Uber for dogsitting or the Nth Pandora clone.

    3. Re:More junk at the expense of knowledge by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 1, Insightful

      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!
    4. Re: More junk at the expense of knowledge by cjonslashdot · · Score: 1

      Yes, very true. The really hard things tend to require deep knowledge - not lots of shallow knowledge. I expect the most of the people who design rockets for Elon Musk at SpaceX have PhDs in aerospace engineering.

    5. Re:More junk at the expense of knowledge by cjonslashdot · · Score: 1

      Yes, although regarding "hotties", things have changed since I was in school. When I was a physics student at Cornell in the '70s, there were two women in my year in the department. Two. Across all colleges on campus, the ratio of men to women was about 70/30. Today I think it is about 45/55. Young college men today have it made, in that respect.

  10. Re: And THIS Is Why Trump Won! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Ah yes, the oppression of the white man. Always being held down by.....I'm sorry, I forgot. Can you remind me who?

  11. This quote, from the end of the article... by OneSmartFellow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...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.

    1. Re:This quote, from the end of the article... by OneSmartFellow · · Score: 1

      Fair point about cultural "touchpoints".

      I would expect any educated person, from any country or culture, to know about Plato, Confucious, Siddharta Gautama, Galileo, maybe John Locke, and others I can't roll off my tongue right now. They should also understand the concepts behind basic Logic, Rhetoric, Poetry, and Prose, and other cornerstones of learning. There are some ideas, thinkers, and facts that - to my mind - are pre-requisite knowledge to claiming an education in anything.

    2. Re:This quote, from the end of the article... by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      It's the liberal educators that have abandoned 'liberal education'. About the only school in America still teaching it is 'The University of Chicago'. The rest are full tilt into progressive indoctrination and are too busy to read 'dead white men'.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    3. Re:This quote, from the end of the article... by TheSync · · Score: 1

      Plato, Confucious, Siddharta Gautama, Galileo, maybe John Locke

      At one point I could tell you all of their philosophy, but the memory locations have been replaced with knowledge of Java classes.

  12. Re:Russia Hacked the GOP too by tomhath · · Score: 3

    She lost the election. Accept that as a fact and get on with your life.

  13. Re:And THIS Is Why Trump Won! by haruchai · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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
  14. Re:It's about time by haruchai · · Score: 1

    " it's a lamb farm where they smoke grass and suck titties till all that bs is out of their system"

    So can't we shift that back to their high school years so we can get a few more productive working years out of them?

    --
    Pain is merely failure leaving the body
  15. Re:White by haruchai · · Score: 1

    "His argument is that we don't need them HERE (in the US), not that we don't need them"

    And I doubt anyone *needs* the US to be in their country so time to get Americans out of all the places they're not wanted and back home where they belong.

    --
    Pain is merely failure leaving the body
  16. Re: And THIS Is Why Trump Won! by mr100percent · · Score: 1

    Hillary is married to a white man. I don't recall her bashing white men, do you have any other straw men to beat?

  17. Re:Russia Hacked the GOP too by mbone · · Score: 1

    She lost the election. Accept that as a fact and get on with your life.

    Did she? DJT is not President yet. Normally, that would seem like a technicality, but this year...

  18. Genius; give me a fucking breath by rfengr · · Score: 1

    So these geniuses are pushing the forefront of technology by writing digital marketing apps, food delivery apps, etc. So sick of this shit and the crap coming out of SV. Call me when you have developed a positronic brain, or some REAL development in computer science. The crash can't come fast enough.

  19. Re:Russia Hacked the GOP too by plopez · · Score: 1

    Remove the super delegates and she lost the nomination.

    --
    putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
  20. Re:Made for millenials by plopez · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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+
  21. Re:In before whining about Thiel backing Trump... by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

    It doesn't matter, he typed 'Trump' before 'Thiel' in his comment, and so tipped his hand as to who and what he was ranting about. It wasn't necessary for him to read the article, his mind was made up.

  22. Re:Russia Hacked the GOP too by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

    You can keep throwing fuel in the Hillary Fever fire if you wish. The flames will die out in a few weeks.

    Prolong your pain, it's like wiggling that loose tooth to experience that mysteriously appealing little twinge of pain.

    If you and your kind insist on fanning those flames, don't be surprised if you're pushed into the fire to fucking burn. Most of the rest of us will feel bad that it happened to you afterwards, but we won't let you burn down the whole place.

  23. Re:In before whining about Thiel backing Trump... by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 2

    Yes! They need to get their /. Geek Canon correct. After all, /. Geek Commandment number one is "Elon Musk is the Lord Your Tech Hero; You Shall Have No Other Heroes Before HIm"

    --
    Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
  24. Re:In before whining about Thiel backing Trump... by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

    When they quit spamming the front page with articles worshiping Musk, sure, you can.

    But I've never heard a parrot whine. Is it even possible? Shouldn't you squawk instead?

  25. Re:And THIS Is Why Trump Won! by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

    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.

    FYI, Hispanics are not 'naturally leftist' and it's racist to make that kind of assumption. As the Hispanic demographic is welcomed into the fold of Americans (USians??) they will settle down and their natural conservatism will manifest. It already does in many regards.

    Significant parts of the Hispanic demographic are 'culturally conservative.' Give them time to settle in and become part of the country, and they won't be the lockstep demographic the Democrats hope for.

    Unless, of course, the Democrats can find a way to lock them into a 'ghetto of dependency.' I don't see that happening, but with enough screeching from those striving to 'protect' them, it is possible 'the liberals' can cause them to identify as victims who need to be rescued by the State.

  26. Geniuses don't wrack up debt at Harvard by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    Harvard will pay you're way 100% if you're an actual genius. Hell, most schools will. You'll be rocking a 1600 SAT and can write your own ticket. The folks who need help are the average students. But they're not who Thiel is after. He wants folks who can power his High Frequency Trading and AI/Automation investments. The wave of the future is skimming off the top and/or getting rid of those pesky employees and their meddling wages & benefits. You need geniuses for that because it _hard_.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Geniuses don't wrack up debt at Harvard by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      1600 SAT?

      Old man.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  27. Re:Russia Hacked the GOP too by HanzoSpam · · Score: 1

    No, Russia didn't.

    The Kremlin has rejected the hacking accusations, while the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has previously said the DNC leaks were not linked to Russia. A second senior official cited by the Washington Post conceded that intelligence agencies did not have specific proof that the Kremlin was “directing” the hackers, who were said to be one step removed from the Russian government.
    Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, who is a close associate of Assange, called the CIA claims “bullshit”, adding: “They are absolutely making it up.”
    “I know who leaked them,” Murray said. “I’ve met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it’s an insider. It’s a leak, not a hack; the two are different things.
    “If what the CIA are saying is true, and the CIA’s statement refers to people who are known to be linked to the Russian state, they would have arrested someone if it was someone inside the United States.
    “America has not been shy about arresting whistleblowers and it’s not been shy about extraditing hackers. They plainly have no knowledge whatsoever.”

    --

    Progressivism: Parasites helping parasites to help themselves - to other people's stuff.
  28. Re: Russia Hacked the GOP too by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

    As opposed to the fact that they definitely had blackmail power on Hillary?

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  29. Re:White by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

    Europe needed Americans after WWII. To avoid speaking Russian. They knew it too.

    Same with Japan and the Philippines, only to avoid speaking Chinese.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  30. I see your spacebar, and raise you 1997^HTML5 by epine · · Score: 1

    It's funny the next Slashdot story is on Pogue complaining about breaking the space bar page-at-a-time scrolling convention by littering the frame with advanced wanker-bling web design (seriously, who ordered all this poptastic page cruft in the first place?)

    So check out backchannel.com.

    backchannel.com is formatting pull quotes as img objects, and the text of the article title is also an img object, impervious to search, much less cut and paste.

    Never assume malice where stupidity is an adequate explanation is drawing a full on &imgsp; blank here.

    Check out the HTML snippet for the page title element. Is this the modern face of stupidity? Or something else?

    <figure name="92b8" id="92b8" class="graf graf--figure graf--layoutOutsetCenter graf--leading"><div class="aspectRatioPlaceholder is-locked" style="max-width: 1000px; max-height: 352px;"><div class="aspectRatioPlaceholder-fill" style="padding-bottom: 35.199999999999996%;"></div><div class="progressiveMedia js-progressiveMedia graf-image" data-image-id="1*UeUbPgF6IX_hMYIa_l8w8w.png" data-width="3126" data-height="1101" data-action="zoom" data-action-value="1*UeUbPgF6IX_hMYIa_l8w8w.png"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/freeze/max/30/1*UeUbPgF6IX_hMYIa_l8w8w.png?q=20" crossorigin="anonymous" class="progressiveMedia-thumbnail js-progressiveMedia-thumbnail"><canvas class="progressiveMedia-canvas js-progressiveMedia-canvas"></canvas><img class="progressiveMedia-image js-progressiveMedia-image" data-src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1000/1*UeUbPgF6IX_hMYIa_l8w8w.png"><noscript class="js-progressiveMedia-inner"><img class="progressiveMedia-noscript js-progressiveMedia-inner" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1000/1*UeUbPgF6IX_hMYIa_l8w8w.png"></noscript></div></div></figure>

  31. Cult by Ryanrule · · Score: 1

    cult cult cult

  32. Re:And THIS Is Why Trump Won! by haruchai · · Score: 1

    "FYI, Hispanics are not 'naturally leftist' and it's racist to make that kind of assumption"
    " As the Hispanic demographic is welcomed into the fold of Americans (USians??) they will settle down and their natural conservatism will manifest"

      Wait a second - did the same personality write both those sentences or are the voices in your head taking turns?
    FYI, assuming Latinos to have a manifest natural conservatism is racist.
    Time will tell how the demographic shift plays out but the white American voter is being outpaced.

    --
    Pain is merely failure leaving the body
  33. Re:And THIS Is Why Trump Won! by haruchai · · Score: 1

    Also America as a whole has done a piss-poor job of "welcoming" Latino immigrants

    --
    Pain is merely failure leaving the body
  34. Re:White by haruchai · · Score: 1

    Europe needed Americans after WWII. To avoid speaking Russian. They knew it too.

    Same with Japan and the Philippines, only to avoid speaking Chinese.

    That was a long time ago. The USA has done a terrible job of being Team America World Police.
    Pull them all out, including from the Middle East and Guantanamo Bay.

    --
    Pain is merely failure leaving the body
  35. Re:White by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

    It is time for Europe and first world Asia to pay a fair share of the costs.

    Someday Russia and China too. But first, they need changes of government.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  36. Re:the dyslexic pimp by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    So more of a warehouse than a factory?

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  37. Re:It's about time by haruchai · · Score: 1

    "try getting out of your suburb once in a while and see the city and the world"
    try taking your own advice before dispensing it to others. If you had & if you had a clue of history, you'd know that young people were out in the workforce, required to act responsibly, at much younger ages than now. A lot of that was detrimental but too many 1st world kids have too much wasted free time.

    --
    Pain is merely failure leaving the body
  38. Re:In before whining about Thiel backing Trump... by rs1n · · Score: 1

    I actually did read the article. Here's essentially the same comment (without Trump/Thiel referenced): https://slashdot.org/comments.... The fact that the program didn't start like that is just more support for why Thiel is not the reason behind the success. The program didn't become successful until it started recruiting already-successful candidates. So in effect, the program is successful because it basically "bought" its success through its selection process. For the record: I don't like neither Trump (compulsive liar who likes to inflate the truth and take credit for things he had little to nothing to do with) nor Hillary (also a liar and complete fraud).

  39. Re:In before whining about Thiel backing Trump... by rs1n · · Score: 1

    Did you bother to read the parent to which I was replying? Or are you guilty of what you are accusing?

  40. Re:In before whining about Thiel backing Trump... by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    But the program evolved into the success it is now, so the very act of starting it was a success to begin with. It seems really odd to claim it "was not a success before" when in a few years it is obviously so; it would be like saying the first iPod was "not a success" because the absolute numbers sold were not high compared to the peak of sales.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  41. What do you really want? by ebvwfbw · · Score: 1

    Sounds to me that you don't know what you want. You say it's an attack on public education, then go on to indict it - correctly I might add. You also don't like what he's doing - skimming the cream off the top.

    Let's start at the beginning, schools in America were started by religious orders, such as the Catholics to teach people how to read the bible. They moved on of course to teach a lot more. Then the government got involved and made public schools. They were very successful and they had a LOT of religion, patriotism, good old American values. I can show you high school year books from my parents from the 1930s and 1940s. Today they'd make a liberal pass out in rage. I know, I've shown it to an almost liberal and they had a fit.

    So what's the problem if we dismantle the very broken public education system? For those of us that pay taxes, look at how your property/county taxes are spent. I bet they're around 50% or more are spent on the county's public schools. They are also chock full of waste, because they don't care. There is no boss, it's the county government. There is no reason to do better or even save money. I used to do the budget for a county government and it was hard to do because of all the BS. BS that everyone can see, if they look. Waste put into place by a large extent by public unions. Hold hostage the kids. Want to cut something? Cut police, fire or education. Never cut the waste. That's never on the chopping block.

    We *COULD* have a first rate education system. Not the way it is in place now. Here's a thought, fire all the janitors. In Japan they don't have ANY janitors. The kids do all the cleaning. Something they all take home. Over here, we have plenty of people that live in trash. We can go on from there.

  42. Re:It's about time by haruchai · · Score: 1

    Here's something I learned in the 3rd grade:
    What people want for their kids and what's good for them are often very far apart

    --
    Pain is merely failure leaving the body
  43. Re:It's about time by haruchai · · Score: 1

    Calm the fuck down, fuckface.
    My vision is quite poor and I wasn't replying to your comment from my usual computer with its larger screens so I only noticed the first line. That's what I replied to.

    "us non-ugly happy normal people".
    Right. Saying that on the internet, especially on /. is like telling everyone you have a big dick.
    If you're making the claim, we know it's a fucking lie.

    "don't no one give a fuck what you think is good for other people's kids"
    Don't no one who don't give a fuck goes to the trouble of telling someone they don't give a fuck about that they don't give a fuck.

    --
    Pain is merely failure leaving the body
  44. Re:It's about time by haruchai · · Score: 1

    You're right about the 1/2 blind nerd. The rest sounds like you're projecting.

    --
    Pain is merely failure leaving the body
  45. Re:It's about time by haruchai · · Score: 1

    "you're like the kid who shit his pants and thinks no one noticed so he keeps being loud"
    That's one of your personal anecdotes I really didn't need to know but common politeness dictates I thank you for sharing.
    So, thanks.

    --
    Pain is merely failure leaving the body