Policy

Get Out of School and Save the World!

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We all know Hit and Run is the greatest gathering of brilliant minds on Earth, so prove it by jumping on to the Thiel Foundation's "20 Under 20 Fellowship," applications due before December 31. 

Part of the rules to collect you $100,000:

Selected Applicant must be willing to:

  1. Begin the two-year fellowship at any time from May to September 2012, unless the Foundation approves an alternative schedule. A Selected Fellowship Applicant/Team must specify when the start of the Fellowship will be when the Selected Fellowship Applicant/Team accepts the Fellowship.
  2. Stop active enrollment in school during the Fellowship.
  3. Forgo other employment or educational enrollment during the two year Fellowship except as approved by the Thiel Foundation.
  4. Consider moving to California.
  5. Achieve a specific objective, produce a report or similar project, or improve or enhance a scientific, technical, or charitable capacity, skill, or talent. This may be developed over the course of the Fellowship.

Make anonbot proud!

This deal has been famously celebrated and derided as the anti-education fellowship, since it "pays you to quit school."

Ron Bailey blogged the other month on Thiel's gloomy pessimism about the innovation economy.

The New Yorker profiled him last month (preview only to non-subscribers)

And National Review writes of some libertarian-disturbing actions of the Thiel data company Palantir, quoting from a Bloomberg Businessweek story, quoting Thiel's defense of selling the government super-surveillance:

Thiel, who sits on the board and is an avowed libertarian, says civil liberties advocates should welcome Palantir. "We cannot afford to have another 9/11 event in the U.S. or anything bigger than that," he says. "That day opened the doors to all sorts of crazy abuses and draconian policies." In his view, the best way to avoid such scenarios in the future would be to provide the government the most cutting-edge technology possible and build in policing systems to make sure investigators use it lawfully.

Thiel rocks Reason.tv with Tim Cavanaugh: