> But what do these companies do? Can we get some specifics? Other than "Upstart", no mention is given of any of the companies. If you go to the Thiel Fellowship website, there is no list of startups founded by these fellows. They do have a list of present and past fellows, but the profile pages mostly link to either the fellows' personal websites (not company websites), or dead links. Without any concrete evidence of these companies even existing, or doing anything useful (instead of just talking about what they're "going to do", or name-dropping all the investors they've attracted), this all sounds like a bunch of hot air. Not to be cynical, and I wish all these people success, but so far they haven't demonstrated that they've actually done anything.
The entire Thiel fellow program is an exercise in finding out which baby can stand up the fastest and projecting that being the first to stand up somehow makes one a genius.
It's little different from child beauty pageants and dog shows.