6 ms·

The 2013 Thiel Fellows

64 points by brackin 13y ago

jacquesm 13y ago
Congratulations to all, but especially to Diwank!
rjvir 13y ago
Every year the Thiel Foundation filters in 20+ amazing individuals. This year is no exception. Congratulations to the fellows that made it, I'm excited to see what they build.
- rdl 13y ago
  Yeah, it's a non-trivial filtering process (I volunteer, and a few other people I know). One of the best parts is that those selected for the last round but not ultimately accepted get most of the benefits from the fellowship (other than the money), too.
  - pitt1980 13y ago
    out of curiousity, what benefits are you referencing?
    - rdl 13y ago
      Referrals, events, participation in the ongoing mentorship, etc. Everything except the 100k.
      - pitt1980 13y ago
        how many applicants make it to the last round?
        trsohmers 13y ago
        ~40
ececconi 13y ago
I'm excited to see what these people come up with.
melling 13y ago
Does anyone have any information on how the previous fellows are progressing?
- kirk21 13y ago
  Yes, check this article. Have a nice day! http://pandodaily.com/2013/04/24/examining-the-thiel-fellowship-where-are-they-now/ http://pandodaily.com/2013/04/24/examining-the-thiel-fellows...
IsaacL 13y ago
I'm surprised with he haven't got the usual HN comments which appear every year when this story is posted. That's a good thing, but here's my "inb4" reply for when those comments finally pop up. Type 1. Last year there was a comment like "I don’t want to crush dreams. But these kids are being set up to fail. They cannot, and will not, live up to these expectations." Related to this are the complaints that these kids only achieved the things they've achieved prior to the programme because their parents were well-connected and helped them out, etc. Type 2. Accusing hypocrisy on behalf of Thiel, who has two advanced degrees, and who often advocates for a return to advanced research which couldn't happen without higher education. I think type 1 comments come from envy, even if they sound like something else. That's understandable, since many HN readers probably have similar smarts to these kids but didn't get the same opportunities in their teens. I know I felt jealous when I first heard of the Thiel program. But - if you look at history, geniuses seem clustered around particular times and locations - ancient Athens, Renaissance Venice, Victorian London, and a few other cultural hubs. This implies that there were thousands of potential geniuses who died in rice paddies (or were killed in war, or who happened to be members of oppressed minorities, or who lived in an era when all the smartest people worked in investment banking, or whatever). It's not just that these individuals were robbed of their potential, it's also the world that was robbed of their contributions. So any attempt to mitigate that trend can only be a good thing, even if it means that some future Einsteins are still dying in rice paddies. Part 2 is a more interesting critique. My response: I can't speak for Peter Thiel, but I don't think he believes that university shouldn't be an option. Rather, university shouldn't be the only option.
- knowtheory 13y ago
  > So any attempt to mitigate that trend can only be a good thing Yeah, that is something that remains to be seen. This is an intervention in the lives of these students. Whether it's a good or a bad thing, for them or for society really is an open question. Amongst the entrepreneurial community there is a lot of discussion of trying something interesting, and failing fast to learn from it. The real question is, does giving a 17 year old 100k$ help with that? Do they need 100k$ to do something interesting? Are they at a point in their life where 100k$ the responsible amount of money to give them to experiment with? Where do they go from there? (these are not rhetorical questions, and I am not entirely convinced the answer is no) There are also broader societal questions. There has been an impetus in the US at least that everyone should get a university degree, come hell and/or high water. That's a model that in its current incarnation is really screwing over a number of people. But I don't see that Theil's program is a solution either. He's picking people he thinks will succeed, just as much as universities are pre-selecting folks who get good marks in classes (as opposed to picking people who will be improved/edified by going through university).
anjalimullany 13y ago
These young people amaze me.
smaili 13y ago
Congratulations to all! May the force be with you! ;)
droithomme 13y ago
Glad to see this continuing and always an interesting set of young adults. That said, the web page design there is abysmal - the expanding photo captions are unreadable, the animation thing is simply obstructive, and the problem persists no matter how big you make the window.
666_howitzer 13y ago
It would have been really great , if he had backed ideas with much riguor as YC does. I think the whole fiasco is about the message not it's immediate impact. I do believe he's sending us a very important message though.
confluence 13y ago
This is a comment from an assessment of the previous generation of Thiel fellows found here: http://pandodaily.com/2013/04/24/examining-the-thiel-fellowship-where-are-they-now/ http://pandodaily.com/2013/04/24/examining-the-thiel-fellows... > But what do these companies do? Can we get some specifics? Other than "Upstart", no mention is given of any of the companies. If you go to the Thiel Fellowship website, there is no list of startups founded by these fellows. They do have a list of present and past fellows, but the profile pages mostly link to either the fellows' personal websites (not company websites), or dead links. Without any concrete evidence of these companies even existing, or doing anything useful (instead of just talking about what they're "going to do", or name-dropping all the investors they've attracted), this all sounds like a bunch of hot air. Not to be cynical, and I wish all these people success, but so far they haven't demonstrated that they've actually done anything. The entire Thiel fellow program is an exercise in finding out which baby can stand up the fastest and projecting that being the first to stand up somehow makes one a genius. It's little different from child beauty pageants and dog shows.
- brackin 13y ago
  Your assumptions are based on a PandoDaily post where they cover just a few of the fellows that have decided to publicise their companies. There's a wider (but far from full) list here. https://www.quora.com/Thiel-Fellows/What-were-the-results-of-the-first-Thiel-Fellowship-Class https://www.quora.com/Thiel-Fellows/What-were-the-results-of... I'd say most of the projects aren't known about (in beta, not startups, not publicised or not launched) at this point, some will fail but I can see quite a few big tech companies springing up from that batch. I believe they said today that fellows have raised $34M+ in funding and I know quite a few YC founders in the fellowship and I've only just scratched the surface of speaking to people.
- zerotoone 13y ago
  confluence, you've been awfully negative about the fellowship and Peter Thiel thus far. However, you should be careful to not conflate the lack of readily available data on the fellows with lack of progress on their end. The fact that there isn't much press is a (very) rough indicator that the fellows are spending time working with their heads-down rather than attention-whoring. Anyways, I'll do some homework for you and dig up some concrete cases of what the fellows have done: - Andrew Hsu raised $1.5M as a solo founder for Airy Labs from Google Ventures and Foundation Capital (http://www.forbes.com/sites/briancaulfield/2011/08/04/names-you-need-to-know-andrew-hsu-19-raises-1-5m-for-educational-gaming-startup/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/briancaulfield/2011/08/04/names-...) - Ben Yu has built a transdermal caffeine company (http://sprayableenergy.com/ http://sprayableenergy.com/), which he holds provisional patents for (http://benyu.org/thiel-fellowship-closing-ceremony-speech http://benyu.org/thiel-fellowship-closing-ceremony-speech) - Clay Allsopp is building Propeller (http://usepropeller.com/ http://usepropeller.com/), a drag-and-drop native iOS app builder. He has also authored a RubyMotion book (http://pragprog.com/book/carubym/rubymotion http://pragprog.com/book/carubym/rubymotion). - Connor Zwick is building YC-backed Coco Controller (http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/14/the-yc-backed-coco-controller-will-turn-your-iphone-into-a-gaming-powerhouse/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/14/the-yc-backed-coco-controll...) to augment iOS and Android gaming. He also has a Flashcards app with 1M+ downloads (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/flashcards+/id408490162?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/flashcards+/id408490162?mt=8). - Darren Zhu is working on a synthetic biology company and has gotten a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/06/thiel-fellows-are-making-the-grade/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/06/thiel-fellows-are-making-th...). - Dale J Stephens has published a book, Hacking Your Education (http://www.amazon.com/Hacking-Your-Education-Lectures-Thousands/dp/0399159967 http://www.amazon.com/Hacking-Your-Education-Lectures-Thousa...) through Perigee Books, and has launched the UnCollege movement (http://www.uncollege.org/ http://www.uncollege.org/) - Daniel Friedman is building personalized online education startup Thinkful, which has raised $1M (http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2013/02/26/peter-thiel-backs-thinkful-for-personalized-online-education/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2013/02/26/peter-thie...). - Eden Full is building the SunSaluter (http://www.sunsaluter.com/ http://www.sunsaluter.com/) through her social venture Roseicollis Technologies, which has won the Westly Prize, the Mashable-UN Foundation Startups for Social Good Challenge, second prize at the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge, and the grand prize at the Staples-Ashoka Youth Social Entrepreneurship Challenge (http://www.linkedin.com/in/edenfull http://www.linkedin.com/in/edenfull). - James Proud sold his company GigLocator for undisclosed 6-figure sum (http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2012/06/20/skip-school-sell-company-meet-the-thiel-fellow-who-just-turned-a-profit/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2012/06/20/skip-school-s...) - Laura Deming has her own fund (http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mkg45jfej/laura-deming-18-2/ http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mkg45jfej/laura-deming-18-2/) and has been working working closely with biotech legend Corey Goodman to fund anti-aging therapies. She also spoke at TEDMED 2013 (http://www.tedmed.com/speakers/show?id=46921 http://www.tedmed.com/speakers/show?id=46921) - Nick Cammarata "started a company that was recently acquired" (http://pandodaily.com/2013/04/24/examining-the-thiel-fellowship-where-are-they-now/ http://pandodaily.com/2013/04/24/examining-the-thiel-fellows...). - Paul Gu is working with Upstart, which raised $5.9M as a kickstarter for people (http://pandodaily.com/2013/04/22/upstart-grabs-5-9-million-to-let-investors-back-people-yep-a-kickstarter-for-people/ http://pandodaily.com/2013/04/22/upstart-grabs-5-9-million-t...) - Ritik Malhotra is working on YC-backed Streem, a Dropbox for Video (https://angel.co/streem https://angel.co/streem) - Sujay Tyle is working at Developer Auction (http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/21/developerauction-sujay-tyle/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/21/developerauction-sujay-tyle...), which has raised $2.7M (http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2013/03/14/developerauction-raises-2-7m-seed-for-tech-hiring-service/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2013/03/14/developera...) - Taylor Wilson is building small nuclear fission reactors (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HL1BEC024g http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HL1BEC024g) - Tom Currier built out a robotic solar panel tracking company (http://www.qbotix.com/ http://www.qbotix.com/) that has raised $7.5M total (http://www.qbotix.com/pressseptember4/ http://www.qbotix.com/pressseptember4/) and got a couple patents for it (http://www.google.com/patents/WO2011150373A1 http://www.google.com/patents/WO2011150373A1, http://www.google.com/patents/WO2012009470A1 http://www.google.com/patents/WO2012009470A1) - Yoonseo Kang has been working on Open Source Ecology and Open Tech Forever (http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/User:Yoonseo_Kang http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/User:Yoonseo_Kang). You can check out some of the stuff he's built here: http://vimeo.com/user9565582 http://vimeo.com/user9565582 The fellows who haven't been explicitly mentioned here aren't necessarily dormant; they simply have not bothered to garner any press. Please tread a little more carefully next time you label something as being "little different from child beauty pageants and dog shows" -- or at the very least, do your homework so a "college dropout" doesn't have to do it for you.

64 points by brackin 13y ago

Congratulations to all, but especially to Diwank!

rjvir 13y ago

Every year the Thiel Foundation filters in 20+ amazing individuals. This year is no exception. Congratulations to the fellows that made it, I'm excited to see what they build.

rdl 13y ago
Yeah, it's a non-trivial filtering process (I volunteer, and a few other people I know). One of the best parts is that those selected for the last round but not ultimately accepted get most of the benefits from the fellowship (other than the money), too.
- pitt1980 13y ago
  out of curiousity, what benefits are you referencing?
  - rdl 13y ago
    Referrals, events, participation in the ongoing mentorship, etc. Everything except the 100k.
    - pitt1980 13y ago
      how many applicants make it to the last round?
      - trsohmers 13y ago
        ~40

ececconi 13y ago

I'm excited to see what these people come up with.

melling 13y ago

Does anyone have any information on how the previous fellows are progressing?

kirk21 13y ago
Yes, check this article. Have a nice day! http://pandodaily.com/2013/04/24/examining-the-thiel-fellowship-where-are-they-now/ http://pandodaily.com/2013/04/24/examining-the-thiel-fellows...

IsaacL 13y ago

I'm surprised with he haven't got the usual HN comments which appear every year when this story is posted. That's a good thing, but here's my "inb4" reply for when those comments finally pop up. Type 1. Last year there was a comment like "I don’t want to crush dreams. But these kids are being set up to fail. They cannot, and will not, live up to these expectations." Related to this are the complaints that these kids only achieved the things they've achieved prior to the programme because their parents were well-connected and helped them out, etc. Type 2. Accusing hypocrisy on behalf of Thiel, who has two advanced degrees, and who often advocates for a return to advanced research which couldn't happen without higher education. I think type 1 comments come from envy, even if they sound like something else. That's understandable, since many HN readers probably have similar smarts to these kids but didn't get the same opportunities in their teens. I know I felt jealous when I first heard of the Thiel program. But - if you look at history, geniuses seem clustered around particular times and locations - ancient Athens, Renaissance Venice, Victorian London, and a few other cultural hubs. This implies that there were thousands of potential geniuses who died in rice paddies (or were killed in war, or who happened to be members of oppressed minorities, or who lived in an era when all the smartest people worked in investment banking, or whatever). It's not just that these individuals were robbed of their potential, it's also the world that was robbed of their contributions. So any attempt to mitigate that trend can only be a good thing, even if it means that some future Einsteins are still dying in rice paddies. Part 2 is a more interesting critique. My response: I can't speak for Peter Thiel, but I don't think he believes that university shouldn't be an option. Rather, university shouldn't be the only option.

knowtheory 13y ago
> So any attempt to mitigate that trend can only be a good thing Yeah, that is something that remains to be seen. This is an intervention in the lives of these students. Whether it's a good or a bad thing, for them or for society really is an open question. Amongst the entrepreneurial community there is a lot of discussion of trying something interesting, and failing fast to learn from it. The real question is, does giving a 17 year old 100k$ help with that? Do they need 100k$ to do something interesting? Are they at a point in their life where 100k$ the responsible amount of money to give them to experiment with? Where do they go from there? (these are not rhetorical questions, and I am not entirely convinced the answer is no) There are also broader societal questions. There has been an impetus in the US at least that everyone should get a university degree, come hell and/or high water. That's a model that in its current incarnation is really screwing over a number of people. But I don't see that Theil's program is a solution either. He's picking people he thinks will succeed, just as much as universities are pre-selecting folks who get good marks in classes (as opposed to picking people who will be improved/edified by going through university).

anjalimullany 13y ago

These young people amaze me.

smaili 13y ago

Congratulations to all! May the force be with you! ;)

droithomme 13y ago

Glad to see this continuing and always an interesting set of young adults. That said, the web page design there is abysmal - the expanding photo captions are unreadable, the animation thing is simply obstructive, and the problem persists no matter how big you make the window.

666_howitzer 13y ago

It would have been really great , if he had backed ideas with much riguor as YC does. I think the whole fiasco is about the message not it's immediate impact. I do believe he's sending us a very important message though.

confluence 13y ago

This is a comment from an assessment of the previous generation of Thiel fellows found here: http://pandodaily.com/2013/04/24/examining-the-thiel-fellowship-where-are-they-now/ http://pandodaily.com/2013/04/24/examining-the-thiel-fellows... > But what do these companies do? Can we get some specifics? Other than "Upstart", no mention is given of any of the companies. If you go to the Thiel Fellowship website, there is no list of startups founded by these fellows. They do have a list of present and past fellows, but the profile pages mostly link to either the fellows' personal websites (not company websites), or dead links. Without any concrete evidence of these companies even existing, or doing anything useful (instead of just talking about what they're "going to do", or name-dropping all the investors they've attracted), this all sounds like a bunch of hot air. Not to be cynical, and I wish all these people success, but so far they haven't demonstrated that they've actually done anything. The entire Thiel fellow program is an exercise in finding out which baby can stand up the fastest and projecting that being the first to stand up somehow makes one a genius. It's little different from child beauty pageants and dog shows.

brackin 13y ago
Your assumptions are based on a PandoDaily post where they cover just a few of the fellows that have decided to publicise their companies. There's a wider (but far from full) list here. https://www.quora.com/Thiel-Fellows/What-were-the-results-of-the-first-Thiel-Fellowship-Class https://www.quora.com/Thiel-Fellows/What-were-the-results-of... I'd say most of the projects aren't known about (in beta, not startups, not publicised or not launched) at this point, some will fail but I can see quite a few big tech companies springing up from that batch. I believe they said today that fellows have raised $34M+ in funding and I know quite a few YC founders in the fellowship and I've only just scratched the surface of speaking to people.
zerotoone 13y ago
confluence, you've been awfully negative about the fellowship and Peter Thiel thus far. However, you should be careful to not conflate the lack of readily available data on the fellows with lack of progress on their end. The fact that there isn't much press is a (very) rough indicator that the fellows are spending time working with their heads-down rather than attention-whoring. Anyways, I'll do some homework for you and dig up some concrete cases of what the fellows have done: - Andrew Hsu raised $1.5M as a solo founder for Airy Labs from Google Ventures and Foundation Capital (http://www.forbes.com/sites/briancaulfield/2011/08/04/names-you-need-to-know-andrew-hsu-19-raises-1-5m-for-educational-gaming-startup/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/briancaulfield/2011/08/04/names-...) - Ben Yu has built a transdermal caffeine company (http://sprayableenergy.com/ http://sprayableenergy.com/), which he holds provisional patents for (http://benyu.org/thiel-fellowship-closing-ceremony-speech http://benyu.org/thiel-fellowship-closing-ceremony-speech) - Clay Allsopp is building Propeller (http://usepropeller.com/ http://usepropeller.com/), a drag-and-drop native iOS app builder. He has also authored a RubyMotion book (http://pragprog.com/book/carubym/rubymotion http://pragprog.com/book/carubym/rubymotion). - Connor Zwick is building YC-backed Coco Controller (http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/14/the-yc-backed-coco-controller-will-turn-your-iphone-into-a-gaming-powerhouse/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/14/the-yc-backed-coco-controll...) to augment iOS and Android gaming. He also has a Flashcards app with 1M+ downloads (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/flashcards+/id408490162?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/flashcards+/id408490162?mt=8). - Darren Zhu is working on a synthetic biology company and has gotten a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/06/thiel-fellows-are-making-the-grade/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/06/thiel-fellows-are-making-th...). - Dale J Stephens has published a book, Hacking Your Education (http://www.amazon.com/Hacking-Your-Education-Lectures-Thousands/dp/0399159967 http://www.amazon.com/Hacking-Your-Education-Lectures-Thousa...) through Perigee Books, and has launched the UnCollege movement (http://www.uncollege.org/ http://www.uncollege.org/) - Daniel Friedman is building personalized online education startup Thinkful, which has raised $1M (http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2013/02/26/peter-thiel-backs-thinkful-for-personalized-online-education/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2013/02/26/peter-thie...). - Eden Full is building the SunSaluter (http://www.sunsaluter.com/ http://www.sunsaluter.com/) through her social venture Roseicollis Technologies, which has won the Westly Prize, the Mashable-UN Foundation Startups for Social Good Challenge, second prize at the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge, and the grand prize at the Staples-Ashoka Youth Social Entrepreneurship Challenge (http://www.linkedin.com/in/edenfull http://www.linkedin.com/in/edenfull). - James Proud sold his company GigLocator for undisclosed 6-figure sum (http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2012/06/20/skip-school-sell-company-meet-the-thiel-fellow-who-just-turned-a-profit/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2012/06/20/skip-school-s...) - Laura Deming has her own fund (http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mkg45jfej/laura-deming-18-2/ http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mkg45jfej/laura-deming-18-2/) and has been working working closely with biotech legend Corey Goodman to fund anti-aging therapies. She also spoke at TEDMED 2013 (http://www.tedmed.com/speakers/show?id=46921 http://www.tedmed.com/speakers/show?id=46921) - Nick Cammarata "started a company that was recently acquired" (http://pandodaily.com/2013/04/24/examining-the-thiel-fellowship-where-are-they-now/ http://pandodaily.com/2013/04/24/examining-the-thiel-fellows...). - Paul Gu is working with Upstart, which raised $5.9M as a kickstarter for people (http://pandodaily.com/2013/04/22/upstart-grabs-5-9-million-to-let-investors-back-people-yep-a-kickstarter-for-people/ http://pandodaily.com/2013/04/22/upstart-grabs-5-9-million-t...) - Ritik Malhotra is working on YC-backed Streem, a Dropbox for Video (https://angel.co/streem https://angel.co/streem) - Sujay Tyle is working at Developer Auction (http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/21/developerauction-sujay-tyle/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/21/developerauction-sujay-tyle...), which has raised $2.7M (http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2013/03/14/developerauction-raises-2-7m-seed-for-tech-hiring-service/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2013/03/14/developera...) - Taylor Wilson is building small nuclear fission reactors (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HL1BEC024g http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HL1BEC024g) - Tom Currier built out a robotic solar panel tracking company (http://www.qbotix.com/ http://www.qbotix.com/) that has raised $7.5M total (http://www.qbotix.com/pressseptember4/ http://www.qbotix.com/pressseptember4/) and got a couple patents for it (http://www.google.com/patents/WO2011150373A1 http://www.google.com/patents/WO2011150373A1, http://www.google.com/patents/WO2012009470A1 http://www.google.com/patents/WO2012009470A1) - Yoonseo Kang has been working on Open Source Ecology and Open Tech Forever (http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/User:Yoonseo_Kang http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/User:Yoonseo_Kang). You can check out some of the stuff he's built here: http://vimeo.com/user9565582 http://vimeo.com/user9565582 The fellows who haven't been explicitly mentioned here aren't necessarily dormant; they simply have not bothered to garner any press. Please tread a little more carefully next time you label something as being "little different from child beauty pageants and dog shows" -- or at the very least, do your homework so a "college dropout" doesn't have to do it for you.