The problem with comparing the Thiel Fellowship recipients with Zuckerberg or even with YC & TechStars startups is that the fellows are selected for being talen

The problem with comparing the Thiel Fellowship recipients with Zuckerberg or even with YC & TechStars startups is that the fellows are selected for being talented and having ambitious ideas, whereas the startups that make it into accelerators tend to already have a product (I know at one point this was not necessarily the case, but today first time entrepreneurs need to have a product to get funded and/or make it into an accelerator not just an idea).