[paulpauper]

It was the mid-2010s and "college dropout" was the mark of an up-and-coming genius. Headlines were questioning the need for degrees at all and billionaire Peter Thiel was awarding high school graduates $100,000 not to attend college and become entrepreneurs instead. "Not long ago, dropping out of school to start a company was considered risky," wrote the Wall Street Journal. "For this generation, it is a badge of honor, evidence of ambition and focus."

Yeah, this cannot be a smart move. $100k doesn't even cover the annual salary of a dev. Good luck starting a business or any initiative with that. Advertising is so expensive these days, along with everything else. I would rather put the $100k in an index fund anyway. Thiel had 2 big successes, those being Facebook and PayPal, everything else he says or does has dubious or is wrong, whether it's bitcoin or imploring kids to drop out of college. College is worthwhile because the median is higher in terms of success, income. Focusing on the outliers who drop out of college ignores that the median is lower.

[andreilys]

Plenty of thiel fellows have started billion/multi million dollar companies (figma, ethereum, luminar, upstart, etc.), so it seems that $100k had been enough for them.

[paulpauper]

But was this with the $100k. I am guessing they got chosen by Thiel and then with his connections raised a lot of funding later from someone else. There is no way you can start a successful tech company with just $100k. Things are so expensive. Maybe 100k is good enough for a hobby but you are not going to make a living off that.

[andreilys]

Well they seemed to have done it, I know plenty of startup founders that have bootstrapped with less than that.

The stamp of approval from Thiel and his network help of course, and is likely more valuable than the $100k but for a lot of these students it gives enough runway to tinker for 2-3 years before landing product market fit.

[seibelj]

> Thiel had 2 big successes, those being Facebook and PayPal

How easy it is to brush aside two of the largest tech successes of the last 20 years!

[paulpauper]

facebook was 17 years ago. What about since? If you cannot adjust to the times or if your new advice is bad, it does not matter how good your prior successes were.

[dj_mc_merlin]

At the risk of breaking the rules, what recent successes do you have that are in any way close to Facebook or PayPal that makes you able to give advice?

[paulpauper]

I am more interested in # of successes and consistency, than size of successes. A lotto winner is a huge success but is is reproducible? Likely not. I recommended tesla stock in 2013, Facebook 2012, bitcoin 2013, was bullish on stocks in early 2020 during Covid, etc.

[the_only_law]

Two of the most beloved tech companies at that!