Sam Parr  ⚪️

The Thiel Fellowship gives $100k to 25 kids a year to drop out of college and start a company. This morning a Thiel Fellowshow recipient (now 25 years old) just sold a self-driving car startup he started with his $100k for $3.4 billion at age 18. Hell yeah.

OTOH, I met multiple Thiel Fellows back in the day who used it to learn stuff and party in SF, with the plan to go finish school after the $$ ran out. A small % of big successes doesn't offer valuable commentary on the worth of college or make the Thiel fellowship a good idea.

It makes Theil fellowship a VERY good idea, actually. Thiel likely made hundreds of millions off a small amount (less than $25m) investment.

I'm not taking about it being a good idea for Thiel. I'm sure he made $$. There are plenty of exploitative investors out there, him included. I'm talking about it being good for the kids, or society. His whole deal with it early on was "you shouldn't go to college".

The ones that have big successes would've had them anyway. The ones who spent 100k fucking about and went back to school are fine The kids who bought Thiel's schtick, didn't get a fellowship, and dropped out anyway are the ones who got screwed by his nonsense.