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Comment on Peter Thiel's Dropout Club

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My initial worry about dropping out is what you don't learn - things that are abstract but perhaps very valuable. Things like real analysis, literature, classics. That's just a worry, though. I was encouraged to see that this was addressed in this article. I've been accused of not valuing the arts when I asked (on a different forum) if it's really worth spending 4 years and running up tens of thousands of dollars in debt (perhaps more) to study it. Hey, you can do that for songwriting too. Trust me, I love songwriting, but I think it would be beyond nuts to go 120K in debt to major in it. The existing system is broken to the point where we need a new way.

I'm not sure what to make of Wadhwa's criticisms. "Right now we should have had a dozen billion-dollar companies, if what Peter Thiel said was true," he says. Instead, he sees small businesses selling small products, and teenagers teaming up with seasoned executives because they lack the management skills they could have learned in college."

I'm not sure of the numbers - is this in reference to the 24 people who were funded? Falling short of a half dozen billion dollar companies in a short period of time means what Thiel said "isn't true"? Well honestly, I'm not a huge fan of Wadhwa, mainly because I find he does things like calling others (like Thiel) "disingenuous and dishonest" when he should really just say he disagrees and explain why. Even so, this seems strange enough that I'm figuring there is some context I'm missing.

The bit about management is weird, too. It's a bad thing young people are teaming up with with seasoned executives to learn the management skills they would have learned in college? Huh. I suppose there are good extracurricular opportunities in college (clubs, newspaper, and so forth), but working with a seasoned executive seems like a pretty great opportunity to me.

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