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Has it actually accomplished much for the fellows? A few posts up /u/prepend wrote this: > and does not match the success of Thiel’s programs for generating su

Has it actually accomplished much for the fellows? A few posts up /u/prepend wrote this: > and does not match the success of Thiel’s programs for generating successful startups (11/900 is a pretty amazing success rate) That may be an amazing success rate for generating startups, but it would also mean that 98.8% of the startups weren't successful. Was dropping out actually good for the fellows aside from a few? Couldn't many argue that for most of these "smart and ambitious" students it really did fail? I'm not really taking a position here because I don't think failure alone means something wasn't worth it. Also I haven't followed Thiel's program that much so can't speak to the specifics. But given the numbers in this thread, I certainly wouldn't recommend students drop out.

prepend 3y ago
That’s 11 multibillion startups. Not that everyone else was a failure. Although even it meant 11 unicorns out of 900 and the rest were zero, those are amazing odds that many would gamble 1-2 years of their life on. Especially at 20. But the article talks about how the others were also successful, just not multi-billion dollar company successful.
- CogitoCogito 3y ago
  I’d be curious of the median (as well as other quantiles) earnings (less university costs) say over 10 years for the individuals involved compared to peers that didn’t drop out. Obviously this isn’t the sort of information that’s easy to obtain. But without it I don’t share your rosy outlook on the program. It seems to me like this easily could be a net negative for most of the students engaging in it.
  - snapplebobapple 3y ago
    You would be right if the choice set was drop out and never come back but have a 2% chance of becoming very wealthy or stay in school and have a higher chance of being middle class but much lower chance of becoming very wealthy. The actual choice set is drop out and spend several years trying to become very wealthy and then go back to school and be delayed by those several years on the path well traveled, or just take the path well traveled right away. It seems extremely unlikely to me that it would be possible for this to be a net negative on average at any point in time past the first few years. average[0.02(mega wealthy)+ N(success but not mega wealthy) + (1-N-0.02(regular path delayed 5 years)] should always be larger than average(regular path) and it should get more pronounced over time and the spread between regular path and regular path delayed 5 years will likely diminish over time. On the society level, unless you are so cynical that you think all the benefit that causes the value of those companies to be in the billions is coming from some sort of market power abuse and none of it is coming from creating something that is so much better than what was there before that people are buying it in a big way, it would be a massive benefit as well because you just increased the conversion rate of ideas into product that benefits society by a massive multiple.

prepend 3y ago

That’s 11 multibillion startups. Not that everyone else was a failure. Although even it meant 11 unicorns out of 900 and the rest were zero, those are amazing odds that many would gamble 1-2 years of their life on. Especially at 20. But the article talks about how the others were also successful, just not multi-billion dollar company successful.

CogitoCogito 3y ago
I’d be curious of the median (as well as other quantiles) earnings (less university costs) say over 10 years for the individuals involved compared to peers that didn’t drop out. Obviously this isn’t the sort of information that’s easy to obtain. But without it I don’t share your rosy outlook on the program. It seems to me like this easily could be a net negative for most of the students engaging in it.
- snapplebobapple 3y ago
  You would be right if the choice set was drop out and never come back but have a 2% chance of becoming very wealthy or stay in school and have a higher chance of being middle class but much lower chance of becoming very wealthy. The actual choice set is drop out and spend several years trying to become very wealthy and then go back to school and be delayed by those several years on the path well traveled, or just take the path well traveled right away. It seems extremely unlikely to me that it would be possible for this to be a net negative on average at any point in time past the first few years. average[0.02(mega wealthy)+ N(success but not mega wealthy) + (1-N-0.02(regular path delayed 5 years)] should always be larger than average(regular path) and it should get more pronounced over time and the spread between regular path and regular path delayed 5 years will likely diminish over time. On the society level, unless you are so cynical that you think all the benefit that causes the value of those companies to be in the billions is coming from some sort of market power abuse and none of it is coming from creating something that is so much better than what was there before that people are buying it in a big way, it would be a massive benefit as well because you just increased the conversion rate of ideas into product that benefits society by a massive multiple.