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Thiel Fellowship

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Thiel Fellowship
TypeFellowship
Funded byPeter Thiel through the Thiel Foundation
AmountUS$200,000
Frequency of selectionAnnual
Number of recipientsUp to 20 per year
Websitethielfellowship.org

The Thiel Fellowship (originally named 20 under 20) is a fellowship created by billionaire Peter Thiel through the Thiel Foundation in 2010. The fellowship is intended for students aged 22 or younger and offers them a total of $200,000 over two years, as well as guidance and other resources, to drop out of school and pursue other work, which could involve scientific research, creating a startup, or working on a social movement. Selection for the fellowship is through a competitive annual process, with up to 20 fellows selected annually.

History

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Peter Thiel announced the fellowship at TechCrunch Disrupt in September 2010.[1] The first round of fellows, based on applications made at the end of 2010, was announced in May 2011.[2][3] The second round of fellows, based on applications made at the end of 2011, was announced in June 2012.[4][5] That year, the fellowship launched a website called "20 Under 20 Documentary Series" that features an online documentary series of four Thiel Fellowship recipients.[6][7]

The third class (announced in May 2013) included 22 fellows working on projects from garment manufacturing and B2B web products to ARM powered servers and biomedicine. The class included 7 fellows from outside of the US.[8]

By the fourth year, the fellowship had achieved few successes. In 2015, Thiel replaced the directors and changed the rules so that young people as old as 22 could join as well.[9]

In early February 2025, Elon Musk used several Thiel Fellows in an attempt to take over operations of the Department of the Treasury through the Trump Administration's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).[10]

The value of the grant has been raised to US$200,000 from US$100,000 since the class of 2025.[11]

Thiel mentors and funds other college dropouts who do not receive the fellowship as well. CNBC notes that Mark Zuckerberg is probably "the most famous college-dropout-turned-tech-billionaire". Thiel was his long-time mentor and the first outside investor in Facebook.[12][13] Business Insider also notes that Thiel's most famous mentees are not Thiel fellows, but Zuckerberg and Sam Altman (both college dropouts).[14][15] Palmer Luckey tried to apply for the fellowship but missed the date. Nevertheless Thiel funded his first startup, Oculus VR, and the Founders Fund incubated the company he was primarily known for, Anduril Industries.[16][17][18] Thiel was also the mentor of the Collison brothers and an early investor in their company Stripe.[19][20][21]

Reception

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Initial perspectives

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Initially, Thiel's announcement of the Fellowship met with diverse responses. Some, such as Jacob Weisberg, criticized Thiel's proposal for its utopianism and attack on the importance of education.[22] Others, such as academic Vivek Wadhwa, expressed skepticism about whether the success or failure of the Thiel Fellowship would carry any broader lessons regarding the value of higher education or the wisdom of dropping out.[23] In May 2011, shortly after the first Thiel Fellows were named, the admissions office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) congratulated two of its students for receiving the Fellowship; both MIT students would, the blog stated, be able to return to MIT to resume studies after completing the two-year fellowship if they desired.[24]

A year after first Fellows were named, opinions on the program ranged from the skeptical and critical to the laudatory and optimistic. In 2012, Eric Markowitz offered a mixed review of the Thiel Fellowship in Inc. magazine.[25] In 2013 the program attracted criticism for its limited results. In April, an article by Richard Nieva for PandoDaily took a close look at how the first batch of Thiel Fellows had fared, finding that some had succeeded and others planned to return to school in the fall once their two years were up.[26] In September, Vivek Wadhwa wrote that the Fellowship had failed to produce notable successes to date, and its limited successes were instances where its Fellows were collaborating with experienced individuals.[27] Also in October, former Harvard University President Larry Summers, speaking at The Nantucket Project conference, said:

I think the single most misdirected bit of philanthropy in this decade is Peter Thiel's special program to bribe people to drop out of college.[28][29][30]

Thiel Fellow Dan Friedman, also a mentor for the Fellowship, published an October 2013 op-ed response, restating in TechCrunch the Fellowship's thesis, and arguing that liberal arts education was becoming less relevant.[31] In a supportive December 2013 Wall Street Journal article, the Thiel Fellowship and its recipient's accomplishements were summarized, up to that point, in this way: "64 Thiel Fellows have started 67 for-profit ventures, raised $55.4 million in angel and venture funding, published two books, created 30 apps and 135 full-time jobs, and brought clean water and solar power to 6,000 Kenyans who needed it."[32]

Thiel's biographer Max Chafkin notes that in the early days, Thiel mismanaged the fellows (the idea of the fellowship had come to him on a whim, after he read the script of the The Social Network, which portrayed him in a way he did not like), showing favoritism and gave them unqualified staff with zero structure, leading to many fellows feeling like failures, followed by mental health issues and drug abuse.[9]

Longer term perspectives

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In October 2023, the Washington Post reported that: "Eleven of the 271 recipients of the Thiel Fellowship have founded unicorns so far, an impressive accomplishment that doesn’t even take into account the inspiring innovations of other fellows and the many exciting projects yet to mature."[33]

The Fellowship's website counts 26 unicorns.[34]

Recipients

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See also: Category:Thiel fellows

Notable recipients

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Notable recipients include the following people (with the year they were awarded the fellowship is indicated in parentheses):

References

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Further reading

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