PayPal Founder and early Facebook investor Billionaire Peter Thiel a technology entrepreneur who has been widely recognized by the World Economic Forum (which honored Peter as a Young Global Leader) and by BusinessWeek, which named him one of the 25 most influential people on the web has announced a unique program for young people in the changing economy. Last month Thiel invited controversy by announcing the Thiel Fellowship, a program offering young entrepreneurs $100,000 to drop out of college and launch high-tech start-ups. In a press release Thiel said some of the innovations that changed the world the most were created by college dropouts who had “ideas that couldn’t wait until graduation.” Thiel, who has made billions with PayPal, Facebook and the Clarium hedge fund, cites such examples as Elon Musk who dropped out of graduate school to start Zip2, which he sold to Compaq for $307 million. Thiel is a billionaire as a result of early Facebook investments and being the co-founder of PayPal. He is calling this his "20 under 20" program, and he thinks that by doing so he is encouraging young adults to not limit themselves with inside the box thinking.
Thiel when asked about his political beliefs in a 2006 interview, stated, "Well, I was pretty libertarian when I started [in business]. I'm ‘way’ libertarian now." Theil’s offer has provoked different reactions. Higher education, directly confronted by the Thiel Fellowship, has also weighed in. Dr. Jeff Cornwall at Belmont University posted an invitation for Thiel to come visit Belmont’s programs for experimental learning. Cornwall wrote that he would introduce Thiel to some student and alumni entrepreneurs who came back to school after they dropped out when they realized what they were missing. On the other hand, Nick Saint at Business Insider said “it’s ridiculous to suggest that most people who go to college do so from the love of knowledge for its own sake.”
Thiel gets at the heart of the jobs issue and the sky rocketing costs of a college education with his Fellowship. Universities continue to cavalierly raise tuition prices in spite of the down economic time. After graduating, students are saddled with thousands of dollars in debt and no jobs. Thiel’s offer is bound to inspire some students who are probably already questioning their future economic situations to look in a different direction.
“There are a lot of things people learn in school, but they don’t learn much about entrepreneurship. We think that actually trying to encourage this is good” the billionaire stated. He believes there is more value for the entrepreneur to launch a tech or scientific idea immediately that to wait the full four years of college or eight years of grad school…
And, in 2010, working for yourself seems a safer bet than going to college, getting oneself into debt and not finding a job…Thiel may be on to something
Thiel received a BA in Philosophy from Stanford University and a JD from Stanford Law School.
“Throw away the briefcase: you’re not going to the office. You can kiss your benefits goodbye too. And your new boss won’t look much like your old one. There’s no longer a ladder, and you may never get to retire, but there’s world of opportunity if you figure out a new path.” --TIME
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