|
The early life of the Thiel Fellowship is laid out on Danielle Strachman’s kitchen table in creased photos, yellowed magazine clippings and handwritten letters from fellows thanking her. Strachman was the homeschool educator and school founder who joined the fellowship’s founding team and ran the program for its first five years. She helped pick the founders of Ethereum, Figma, Anthropic and more. The fellowship was created to show young people they didn't need a degree to be taken seriously. But 15 years later, its acceptance rate is lower than Harvard's — and it's one of the most coveted credentials in Silicon Valley. How did Strachman choose fellows? What did fellows get besides the $100K grant? And did it work? Even the people who built it don't agree.
|
