Believing that skipping college is key to quicker business innovation, Peter Thiel, PayPal co-founder and one of the first to invest in Facebook, is putting his money where his mind is. His foundation (the Thiel Foundation) will be handing out $100,000 to 24 people under 20 to drop out of college for two years and start companies.
As the first members of the 20 Under 20 Thiel Fellowship, the Fellows will pursue innovative scientific and technical projects, learn entrepreneurship, and begin to build the technology companies of tomorrow. During their two-year tenure, each Fellow will receive $100,000 from the Thiel Foundation as well as mentorship from the Foundation’s network of tech entrepreneurs and innovators. The project areas for this class of fellows include biotech, career development, economics and finance, education, energy, information technology, mobility, robotics, and space.
Even though this social experiment will annoy a lot of college graduates (“college is always good for you”) it will be very interesting to see the outcomes of the people taking Thiel up on his offer.
