Paying Tech Talents to Drop Out of College

29 May 2011

Peter Thiel

This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.

What do Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison have in common? They all made billions of dollars in technology. And they all left college. Now, a wealthy businessman is paying other technologically talented young people to follow that same path.

Peter Thiel is paying them to drop out or at least to "stop out" of higher education temporarily to work on their interests. He and his Thiel Foundation just announced the first group of what they call 20 Under 20 Thiel Fellows.

PETER THIEL: "We selected people on the basis of a combination of having demonstrated intense passion about science and technology and then having the drive to try to carry it forward in the years ahead."

There are twenty-four people to be exact, because a couple of projects involve more than one person.

One of the youngest is Laura Deming. At twelve she began researching ways to extend human life. Now, at seventeen, she has already graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Eighteen-year-old John Marbach just finished high school. He hopes to use Web tools to bring classrooms into the digital age. He plans to attend one semester of college before he begins his fellowship.

Each of the fellows will receive one hundred thousand dollars over two years to continue their research. They will also receive help from experts.