While Thiel definitely charmed his way into a NZ Citizenship (amazing piece here by the way: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/indepth/national/how-peter-thiel-g...), I always read his comment more as advice to avoid the traditional Management Consulting / Finance / Law career paths that a lot of Ivy League / Stanford / elite school students end up taking, where they work 70+ hours every week, generally competing for a 5% chance to become a partner 15 years down the track. The payoff isn't great. But the prestige of working at McKinsey / Goldman / Cravath is.