Reform the broken system by leaving it behind and creating something better.

In 2011, Peter Thiel launched a controversial education program to pay college students $100,000 to drop out. To drop out and do what? Not look for a job. But to work full time on new startup businesses.

Thiel Fellows have created eleven startups valued at $1 billion or more.

The most notable Thiel fellow to date is Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of the Ethereum blockchain. As of this writing, Ethereum has a market capitalization of about $200 billion and has spawned an unprecedented ecosystem of decentralized software development. There are nearly 7,000 Ethereum-based projects, including some of the most innovative and promising ideas today.

Austin Russel, a 2013 Thiel fellow, took Luminar Technologies Inc. public in 2020, valuing the company at $8.5 billion, while Paul Gu helped Upstart go public at a $4.8 billion valuation. Both Russell and Gu were early Thiel fellows and co-founders of their respective companies. Dylan Field agreed to sell Figma Inc., the influential design company he co-founded, to Adobe Inc. last year for roughly $20 billion.

Concludes Bloomberg, "The results of the Thiel Fellowship demonstrate that colleges likely block or delay the success of the most promising students."

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-10-19/thiel-s-unicorn-success-is-awkward-for-colleges?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&leadSource=uverify%20wall