Where next will we see Peter Thiel, billionaire, founder of PayPal and early investor in Facebook? As NBC’s or CNN’s policy wonk on technology and all things digital? Or perhaps in public office, the Libertarian who actually gets elected?
More and more Thiel’s wild ideas and incendiary comments are just the thing to grab the public’s and the media’s attention and propel him to a wider stage than just Silicon Valley.
His latest comments come courtesy of the Churchill Club’s Top 10 Tech Trends for 2012. At the event, he questioned whether or not higher education will be disrupted by online courses and universities. Of course, he just didn’t question, he said:
“People in the middle class don’t know what else to do so they teach.”
“A lot of parents are very irresponsible; they don’t want to spend time with their kids.” Schools are just baby-sitters.
Peter Thiel: Can Education Really Be Disrupted? from Churchill Club on FORA.tv
If you’re keeping track, you know that Thiel has also waded into the H1-B Visa debate and whether or not the United States should allow more skilled foreign tech workers into the country. He thinks the country should and has funded a startup, the Blueseed Project, which wants to dock a massive cruise ship off the California coast to house the workers, thus circumventing any Visa requirements. Think of it has a floating country of software developers where everyone is very sea sick.
To add to his provocateur status, Thiel also advocates paying students to drop out of college:
PayPal Founder Pays Entrepreneurs to Be College Dropouts from The Economist on FORA.tv
