Peter Thiel: Tech visionary who tells young to drop out of education

Pay Pal co-founder Peter Thiel is one of Silicon Valley's most celebrated venture capitalists. However, his new scheme, which pays students to drop out of college, has caused an outcry in America. So is Thiel an angel investor or is his influence more sinister?

Silicon's Valley's most celebrated venture capitalist is a past master at spotting bubbles. One of the few who saw the 2000 Nasdaq crash coming, he then correctly diagnosed that "the equity bubble had simply shifted onto the housing market", says TechCrunch. Now he claims that America is under the spell of a "higher education bubble" that saddles its brightest with ruinous debts for little discernible return. Hence his plan to offer 20 young entrepreneurs $100,000 in grants on condition that they drop out of college to pursue their ideas.

"A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed," says Thiel. "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 is no Santa Claus." That might explain some of the opprobrium that has landed on Thiel's head since he launched the scheme, says Bloomberg Businessweek. Yet, as he points out, at least three US "defining tech geniuses" Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg were college drop-outs.

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