From $200,000 grants to $100B startups: tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s fellowship turns college dropouts into founders

The fellowship, run by The Thiel Foundation, provides funding to "young people who want to build new things instead of sitting in a classroom," along with access to a global network of founders, investors, and scientists. Fellows are required to commit full-time to developing their projects without academic obligations.

Since its inception, the program has supported more than 300 young entrepreneurs and backed over 11 unicorns worth a combined $100 billion, including blockchain platform Ethereum and U.S. financial data network Plaid.

Alumni include Figma CEO Dylan Field, whose design software company reached a $70 billion market cap after shares surged 333% in its first days of trading, and Scale AI cofounder Lucy Guo, recognized as the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire, according to Fortune.

Tech billionaire investor Peter Thiel. Photo from X

The fellowship began in 2011 with an initial $100,000 grant, which doubled to $200,000 this year as the program unveiled its 2025 class of fellows. All fellows selected for this year’s class were 22 or younger, Business Wire reported.

"Higher education is the worst institution we have," Thiel said in May when introducing this year’s batch of entrepreneurs. "For these exceptional fellows, we are providing an alternative."

Former Harvard President Larry Summers in 2013 called the fellowship the "single most misdirected bit of philanthropy," TechCrunch reported.

Author Max Chafkin wrote in his book "The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley’s Pursuit of Power," that some fellows, as young as 16, struggled with financial management and described the fellowship as "college without the classes, a residential community, or studying," according to Business Insider.

Entrepreneur and academic Vivek Wadhwa noted that "for the vast majority of college dropouts, the opportunities are sparse," adding that their startups are often less successful than those founded by graduates.

Thiel, who co-founded PayPal alongside world’s richest man Elon Musk and Max Levchin, also launched Palantir and was the first major investor in Facebook. He has invested in other leading startups including Stripe and SpaceX, according to Forbes.

Thiel himself holds multiple degrees from Stanford University. His net worth is estimated at $23.6 billion as of Aug. 19.