Dropping Out and Other Low-Risk Life Decisions
Risk has never been cheaper, yet commitment has never been harder. On the Thiel Fellowship, the dizziness of freedom, and Silicon Valley accidentally making risk free.
Imagine this: you are 21 years old, freshly bar-legal, approaching your senior year of college (for most of you, congratulations, this is your make-believe do-over). Choose your fighter: Get paid $250,000 by a prestigious fellowship to drop out and build (you’re not exactly sure what yet) Do Y Combinator with a few classmates—no need to drop out, thanks to their new “Early Decision” track, borrowing the language of college and aligning itself with it Sign a return offer with Anthropic, OpenAI, or the frontier lab of your choice for $300k+ for your first year post-grad Go to class, learn,…
saved by
related reading
- Dropping Out and Other Low-Risk Life Decisionsartificialwhimsy.com
- Before the Startuppaulgraham.com
- Keeping Your Options Open is Ruining Your Lifemnqrls.substack.com
- Keeping Your Options Open is Ruining Your Lifesubstack.com
- Advice for ambitious 19 year olds - Sam Altmanblog.samaltman.com
- The Stanford Freshmen Who Think They Rule the World - The Atlantictheatlantic.com
- How Tech Hype is Ruining College Students in Techsarv.substack.com
- Is YC for Cowards?stanfordreview.org
- choosing - by vincent huang - a slice of my mindmindslice.substack.com
- Reconsidering Career Optionality - Erik Torenbergeriktorenberg.substack.com
- The Stanford Freshmen Who Think They Rule the World - The Atlantictheatlantic.com
- On Medici and Thiel - by Rohit Krishnanstrangeloopcanon.com