Thiel Foundation Announces Next Thiel Fellow Class

I'm really skeptical of Eteched. They make claims about how their chips are "optimized for transformers", as if Nvidia's Tensor Cores aren't optimized for those workloads too. Plus, if they really are only good at transformers, they'd get screwed over if SSMs or some other models become dominant. And their website has a "tokens per second" graph with no Y-axis, which is never a good look.

I think that if you want to build an AI chip company, you have to leverage some novel technology (processing-in-memory, photonics, etc) that counter-positions you against Nvidia. Trying to beat Nvidia at optimizing digital logic seems like a losing battle.

"Today's universities are as corrupt as the medieval Catholic Church. The Reformation is underway," said Peter Thiel.

“This year’s class understands the importance of the present moment. They reject the well-worn paths of red tape, digital distractions, and self-censorship,” said Alex Handy, director of the Thiel Fellowship. “By refusing to sit idle while others succumb to conformity’s paralysis, they’re positioned to finally deliver on the future.”

This is.. a bit extreme and hyperbolic. I would guess this is what happens when you insulate yourself with sycophants who constantly reinforce a particular world-view and go more and more extreme with it.

Deliberately forgoing a rounded education to start a business 3 years earlier is very short term thinking. It may enable people to follow their instincts and the lead of others with similar backgrounds, but robs bright people of an opportunity to be challenged, persuaded or to change path based on deeper understanding.

Many of the biggest problems in the current tech space are born of founders who in their mid thirties discover ideas and people they would have encountered in their teens in University. Zuckerberg, Musk and others are staggeringly incurious about anything which wasn’t always their passion and have never been required to confront ideas and concepts they have no affinity to.

Some of these people will succeed monetarily but none of them will be better people for knowing less. I have never met a founder who failed to grasp business because they were “wasting” time studying other things. In fact the best engineers I have ever employed have come from non engineering backgrounds and brought with them a wealth of perspective and insight.