Free money is certainly nice to have, but I have deep doubts that “a no-strings-attached grant of $100,000” will do what they hope to achieve, compared to a control group (say, the next 24 in their ranking, those who did not receive the funding). How many runners-up also founded companies, won prizes, etc.? I hope they are tracking this, as well as the progress of the recipients, before patting themselves on the back.
Millions of people enjoy a higher quality of life because smart people like Steve Jobs, Muriel Siebert, Benjamin Franklin, Mark Zuckerberg, and hundreds of others skipped college to start a project that couldn’t wait.
Funny how they use (cherry-picked) people who didn’t use their funding as an example to support their point.
Free money is certainly nice to have, but I have deep doubts that “a no-strings-attached grant of $100,000” will do what they hope to achieve, compared to a control group (say, the next 24 in their ranking, those who did not receive the funding). How many runners-up also founded companies, won prizes, etc.? I hope they are tracking this, as well as the progress of the recipients, before patting themselves on the back.
I would expect that increasing the working lifetime of one of the people in question by ~4 years is worth way more than $100k, and so even if this just convinces these people to skip college it may be a net win.
(And that’s ignoring the indirect effects: if one of the runner-up 24 decides to skip college and launch a startup without taking Thiel’s money as a result of this offer, that’s a win for Thiel, even though it would look the opposite in the metric you’re proposing.)
I would expect that increasing the working lifetime of one of the people in question by ~4 years is worth way more than $100k
It is certainly a possibility worth testing using a properly designed metric.
(And that’s ignoring the indirect effects: if one of the runner-up 24 decides to skip college and launch a startup without taking Thiel’s money as a result of this offer, that’s a win for Thiel, even though it would look the opposite in the metric you’re proposing.)
Or get discouraged by the loss and go into finance to work as a quant, or something similarly useless to society.
While it’s true that Thiel didn’t invest in the ideas of Jobs, Siebert, or Franklin when they first started Apple,Muriel Siebert & Co., Inc or Franklin’s many ventures, It is true that he was an early investor in Facebook and sits on it’s board of directions.
Free money is certainly nice to have, but I have deep doubts that “a no-strings-attached grant of $100,000” will do what they hope to achieve, compared to a control group (say, the next 24 in their ranking, those who did not receive the funding). How many runners-up also founded companies, won prizes, etc.? I hope they are tracking this, as well as the progress of the recipients, before patting themselves on the back.
Funny how they use (cherry-picked) people who didn’t use their funding as an example to support their point.
I would expect that increasing the working lifetime of one of the people in question by ~4 years is worth way more than $100k, and so even if this just convinces these people to skip college it may be a net win.
(And that’s ignoring the indirect effects: if one of the runner-up 24 decides to skip college and launch a startup without taking Thiel’s money as a result of this offer, that’s a win for Thiel, even though it would look the opposite in the metric you’re proposing.)
It is certainly a possibility worth testing using a properly designed metric.
Or get discouraged by the loss and go into finance to work as a quant, or something similarly useless to society.
While it’s true that Thiel didn’t invest in the ideas of Jobs, Siebert, or Franklin when they first started Apple,Muriel Siebert & Co., Inc or Franklin’s many ventures, It is true that he was an early investor in Facebook and sits on it’s board of directions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel