Thiel Fellowship: 20 Under 20 Winners Released | Hacker News Reader

Thiel Fellowship: 20 Under 20 Winners Released

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48 pointsnicklovescode41 comments

I worry sometimes about our current culture's fascination with on-paper achievements and crafting lives around the perfect college essay -- ironic given the point of the Thiel Fellowship from what I understand. Have we replaced climbing the 80's corporate ladder with the hyperyuppies of 2011? Are there organizations that foster self-discovery, even to the detriment of relentless productivity and 'hustle?' To me, a hacker seeks nothing short of enlightenment.

The Theil Fellowship is a perfect example of ranking on meaningless achievements. Like you said, the perfect college essay—but I'd be willing to put money on the guess that no real innovation will come out of the program.

A real hacker doesn't polish college essays. A real hacker actually creates stuff. If they must apply to something, I think they'd be far more successful going through Y Combinator.

It seems to me that the entire point of the program is to foster self discovery, albeit in a specific area that a recipient has demonstrated aptitude in. Personally, I've discovered far more about myself leading a startup than I did in college.

Certainly an impressive bunch - when I first saw the publicity for the 20 under 20 program, I was miffed that they weren't taking 21-year-olds. But I see now I'd have had no chance of getting accepted - no chance against people who were doing research at the age when I was collecting pokemon cards. Seriously, who are these people? Best of luck to them all anyway.

The short answer? They're people with connections.

It doesn't matter how smart you are: you don't work in a university lab at age 11 without someone pulling strings for you. (Unless they're counting stuff like gifted/talented summer camps as "work".)

You occasionally see high school kids in the lab in summer doing some sort of trivial research. The best cases are disadvantaged kids who have access to science advocacy programs. The worst cases are kids whose parents have influence and/or work at the university. It's one of the things that drives me nuts about dog-and-pony shows like the Intel science fair -- smart kids who don't have access via ambitious/overzealous parents don't have a chance.

While it's true that they benefit from connections (I've seen SO many smart students lose their lives away through K-12 public education, which wastes FAR more talent than any college/university education system - and connections help them get out of it), the fact is that the Internet is now making it easier for us to make connections with people (you can just email the right person who can pull the strings for you now). In fact, you could get connections simply by friending them on Facebook, and they, being entrepreneurs, are probably more likely than others to accept if they think you're interesting.

^ why people hang out on Quora.

>It doesn't matter how smart you are: you don't work in a university lab at age 11 without someone pulling strings for you.

BUT BUT ... meritocracy

I think this demonstrates that 20 under 20 doesn't do much to prove Thiel's argument that going to college is overrated and overpriced for the average student. Some of these guys could be writing my textbooks

I think for Andrew Hsu this is a big mistake. Looks like this guy has the potential of an Einstein or Newton and his academic gifts should be nurtured to the greatest extent possible. It is the equivalent of 'eating up our own seed corn' that happened during the industrial revolutions when 12 year olds were made to work in factories!

I think he's got an interesting mission: he wants to change the way kids learn using his knowledge of neuroscience. http://www.andrewhsu.com/projects/project_overview.htm

If he doesn't succeed with his startup, I'm sure he'll go on to do great things anyway.

Odd that a man who is developing a company around 'learning by play' is depriving himself of the very playground late teens need -- a time for academic, physical, and emotional exploration with little supervision and few repercussions. I wish him the best of luck though.

If we had eaten our own seed corn, as you suggested, we would have been dead now (as a species and as a society).

Anyway that was about the age where Washington started to work as a surveyr.

My favorite is Jefferey Lim who apparently figured out a way to get two 100K scholarships.

Jeffrey Lim must be double motivated.

Double Copy Plus Paste Good.

Having gotten to the final round of the Fellowship application process and met all of these people individually I can say with confidence that we will see some very very cool things from them in the next 2 years. Every single one of them is highly intelligent and motivated and well deserving of the Fellowship

The editing is horrible but the list is impressive. I'm surprised to see so many having an academic background. I thought the whole point was that the fellowship is before an a academic education.

It is for stopping out of school.

I think Bootvis' point is that Thiel seems just as swayed by academic credentials as the rest of us. How many busking hobos made the 20?

i think "under" is too vague. i want to start the "23 exactly 23" award.

(I got on a "35 Under 35" thing once. Now I'm too old and have to shoot for "40 under 40")

I'm assuming there's a typo for 'Faheem Zaman'. It said he got "5580 points across 5 [SATs]."

Even assuming they were all on the 1600 point scale, I had a higher aggregate score across only 4 sittings of the SAT (2 in HS, 2 in Junior High), and I'm not particularly unusual in my scores.

My guess is SAT (2400 scale) plus 4 of those SAT II tests (800 scale). For example:

Main SAT: 2400 Math IIC: 800 Physics: 800 Biology: 790 Chemistry: 790

Solid scores for sure, but certainly not his only accomplishment I'm guessing.

By far the least impressive paragraph. I have the same numbers, but thats really nothing to write home about. I would be the first to admit that test scores doesn't really show creativity or potential. While the other applicants described true achievements, I think test scores only show that one has Asian parents and buckled down for a summer and studied hard.

SAT I: 2380 (V: 790, M: 800, W: 790), SAT II: Math L2: 800, Mol. Biology: 800, Chemistry: 800, World History: 800

I really hope they put the brunt of their evaluation on the interview process - I think at 20, there isn't really enough time for a track record of doing independent things well. They have clearly shown excellence at what they have been doing, but what they have been doing as a whole seems to be on the well-worn path of education and extracurricular activities/research.

Usually with these things, the kids have no input in their bios- some PR nut who got a 1950 on his SAT thinks it's impressive and puts it up. Whatever the scores are, I'm a fan of microfinance- glad to see a lot of these kids focusing on big picture problems.

Knowing some of the person(s) on here, I'm really excited to see what will come out of their fellowships. While I remain a little skeptical of the project as a whole, for these promising individuals it's really not an end-of-the-world decision if things don't work out and they don't revolutionize the universe in 2 years; they could always go back to their usual tracks. That being said, I think that the Thiel fellowships are a good springboard such that, whatever their immediate success, they will have learned interesting skills.

Very impressive group of recipients. The program feels sort of like Rhodes meets YCombinator

I'm struck by the grandness of these ideas. It seems Thiel, like many people, is drawn to those who promise a lot.

Bi-o-ge-ron-to-lo-gy. Besides having 7 syllables, how is it different from gerontology?

And now we're in a bubble. ;)

Only 2 girls out of 20?

I wonder how many girls applied. Can't really make a judgement without knowing that figure.

Nor can one make a judgement without knowing how many girls were in the top 20.

If 2 applied, then I take back my outrage.

I'd be outraged if only 2 applied.

To whomever downvoted, my use of the word "outraged here was in jest :-)

I'd apply if only to outrage you 2.

For different reasons...

As politically incorrect as it is to say, the sad fact is that most girls can't actually perform at the level required to get into that program.

Go ahead and downvote me if you must, but I would love to see evidence that this does not have the same explanation power that the typical reasons does.

Looks more like a McKinsey line-up vs. a CEO line-up. We shall see how it goes - picking the brightest doesn't mean they'll be a good CEO.

Two women. Gender balance much?

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