Thiel Fellowship

Initial perspectives

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.^[10] 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.^[11] 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.^[12]

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.^[13] 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.^[14] 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.^[15] 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.^[16][17][18]

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.^[19] 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."^[20]

Longer term perspectives

This section needs expansion with: further interim and up-to-date persectives, rather than stopping the reporting at 2013, or providing a single view. You can help by adding to it. (December 2024)

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."^[21]

Notable recipients

This section possibly contains original research. (December 2024)

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

• Laura Deming (2011) – founder and partner at Longevity Fund.^{[citation needed]}
• Dale J. Stephens (2011) – founder of Year On, formerly UnCollege.^[22]
• Dylan Field (2012) – co-founder and CEO of Figma^[23]
• Taylor Wilson (2012) – the second youngest person to produce nuclear fusion.^[24]
• Ritesh Agarwal (2013) – founder & CEO of OYO Rooms.^{[citation needed]}
• William LeGate (2013) – CEO of Pillow Fight; previously Good Pillow.^{[citation needed]}
• Austin Russell (2013) – founder and CEO of Luminar Technologies, the world's youngest self-made billionaire as of 2021.^[25]
• Vitalik Buterin (2014) – co-creator of Ethereum.^[26]
• Lucy Guo (2014) - co-founder Scale.AI, founder of Passes.^[27]
• Stacey Ferreira (2015) – co-founder of the gig worker platform, Forge.^{[citation needed]}
• Simon Tian (2015) – founder of Neptune, Fonus.^{[citation needed]}
• Cathy Tie (2015) – founder of Ranomics, Partner at Cervin Ventures^[28]
• Joey Krug (2016) – founder of decentralized prediction market platform Augur, later co-CIO at Pantera Capital, partner at Founders Fund.^{[citation needed]}
• Boyan Slat (2016) – founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup.^[29]
• Shahed Khan (2017) –  co-founder of Loom, Inc..^{[citation needed]}
• Lani Lazzari (2017) –  worked on skincare for sensitive skins.^{[clarification needed][citation needed]}
• Iddris Sandu (2018) –  co-founder of Spatial Labs.^{[citation needed]}
• Joshua Browder (2018) – founder & CEO of legal startup DoNotPay.^[30]
• Erin Smith (2018) – creator of software to detect Parkinson's Disease.^{[citation needed]}
• Shane Curran (2020) –  worked on security software for developers.^{[clarification needed][citation needed]}