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."

Comments

Yet another attack on public education

[shanen]

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?