Peter Thiel

Peter Thiel, the PayPal co-founder and one of the first investors in Facebook, gave 24 kids under 20 each $100,000 to drop out of school for two years to start a their own companies. Some even left universities like Harvard and Stanford! Thiel is doing this in order to “challenge the authority of the present and the familiar.” I can kind of respect that.

Here’s what the man had to say about why he is doing this:

“A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed. Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States. To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It’s like telling the world there’s no Santa Claus. Students today are taking on more debt, and recently tightened bankruptcy laws make it more difficult to shake that debt. Those factors make higher education a risky investment. If you get this wrong, it’s actually a mistake that’s hard to undo for the rest of your life”.

[Source: NPR]