The Thiel foundation (created by PayPal founder Peter Thiel) recently announced the inaugural winners of its “Don’t Go To College, Jimmy!” Prizes.
No, actually, they’re called the “20 Under 20″, and each fellow will get $100,000 for two years, and be expected to build a business. But they can’t go to college, darn it, even if they were already matriculating at prestigious institutions.
This 44-year-old man is trying to lure teenagers away from the classroom. No, that's not creepy or anything.
Thiel is on record as saying education is an overpriced investment (currently very true) and I actually agree with him on other counts: higher ed is incapable of fostering innovation. It’s like a cumbersome Brontosaurus CEO failing to respond to a Velociraptor hostile takeover. At least Thiel is providing some sort of concrete plan, instead of just telling people to leave and expecting them to figure something out.
On the other hand, Thiel is clearly just a punk-ass contrarian who enjoys ruffling educational feathers. The recent NPR article highlights a quote from the original TechCrunch interview:
A 44-year-old man wanting to be dangerous? Classic midlife crisis. Stop trying to mess with kids’ heads and get a freakin’ motorcycle already.
And perhaps Thiel’s German heritage explains why the fellowship and its recipients spit in the face of the Establishment using only pre-approved tech-friendly mantras. (In my experience, techies outstrip even hippies, punks or emos when it comes to being really bad at nonconformity. And Germans? Come on.) And of course there’s nary a humanity to be found anywhere on the list of recipients — that would have been surprising, at least.
Like Thiel, I think it’s positively adorable when kids think they have brand spanking new ideas that no one’s ever had before. Unlike Thiel, I feel obligated to point out just how easy that is when you’re too busy ” innovating” to learn from get, like, totally bogged down in the past, man. And seriously, how are these kids going to understand the world, let alone run a company, when they’re not allowed to sit in a bar?
If Thiel wants to shake up taboos, maybe he should brush up on his Socrates or Machiavelli or Abraham Lincoln. Because if you’re really rebelling right, you won’t be rewarded with cash and prizes. So, youngsters, if you manage to eke out death threats from someone like Mr. Thiel, then you’ll know you’ve hit a nerve. Come see me, we’ll talk.
Awesome.
That is all.
Thanks!
Can i date you?
Apart from geographical concerns, I don’t really believe in dating as the modern world defines it. So no, but I’m very flattered.
Looking at the bios of the winners, it’s apparent these are some youngsters who have been born into pretty privileged lifestyles. About one of the winners: “She started working in a biogerontology lab when she was 12, matriculated at MIT when she was 14.” This woman was clearly going to have a successful life whether or not she got Thiel’s prize. Also, there’s an irony in the fact that part of her five-line bio for winning an anti-education prize highlights the young age at which she enrolled in one of the nation’s top universities.
This doesn’t strike me as a significant response to overvalued education. I think you’re spot on with your “midlife crisis” theory. But hey, If I were a billionaire I’d probably get my rocks off with headline-grabbing stunts, too.
Yeah, I agree these are just plain outliers, and it’s not like he’s giving a leg up to people without opportunities. But I’d say that, too, is pretty standard for the tech community; there’s a lot of privilege and very little recognition of how that might have contributed to individual successes. Which is why I can’t quite leave my humanities training behind…though I can’t deny I’d do some crazy-ass shit if I were a billionaire, even I weren’t having a midlife crisis.
If anyone believes in the littlest that the education people get in colleges and universities is beneficial for kids in their professional life then they are living in a false world.
As an entrepreneur (and the person signing the payroll checks) I put a lot more value in people’s expertise and potential to learn that someone’s education, would I do this if I found the CS degree actually brought value to my company? Of course not.
Higher education better wake up soon or it will be irrelevant a lot faster that some may think, at least in the technical and science fields.
Preaching to the choir, dv — you’ll note I left higher ed. But how does a 21-year-old show expertise without a degree? Starting your own business is great, but not everyone has the resources to do so. In that way, I suspect there’s the same problem as with college, namely that this has a lot more to do with socioeconomic class than anyone wants to admit.