These Gen Z and millennial founders dropped out of college, took $200,000 from Peter Thiel, and have now built companies worth over $100 billion

Palantir's Peter Thiel holds up a wad of cash (Credit: Bloomberg / Contributor / Getty Images)

• Peter Thiel’s fellowship is offering young entrepreneurs $200,000 to skip or leave college and build their own billion-dollar startups. The program launched in 2011 has since generated more than $100 billion in business value, with notable alumni including Figma CEO Dylan Field and Scale AI cofounder Lucy Guo. While Gen Z questions the value of a college degree amid rising loans and limiting job opportunities, Thiel and his fellows agree that true education comes from real-world experiences rather than a classroom.

Venture capitalist Peter Thiel will give you $200,000. He only asks that you have a great idea and fully commit to it—and the $26 billion tech entrepreneur thinks the only way for young, aspiring entrepreneurs to go all-in is by dropping out of college.