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.
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.