Peter Thiel, the cofounder of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook, discussed the importance of innovation and the formation of an education system to favor innovation in a speech and dialogue with Princeton U. computer science professor Jaswinder Singh.
The event, titled “Facebook, PayPal and the College Bubble: A Conversation with Peter Thiel,” was sponsored by the American Whig-Cliosophic Society and the Princeton Entrepreneurship Club.
As a nation, Thiel said, “we’re very geared toward globalization” rather than toward technology.
He added that he feels there has been a significant deceleration in the rate of technological innovation in the United States.
When asked what would need to be done to cause technological innovation to move forward, Thiel explained that methods such as open encouragement, fewer government limitations on innovation and changes in society’s views toward higher education were crucial for technological advancement.
Throughout the discussion, Thiel focused on changing societal views in the United States to increase opportunities for the nation’s best students.
The most talented students, Thiel explained, are the ones who should be encouraged to innovate.
These top students are currently producing less than they are capable of because “they can sort of coast,” unchallenged, in the current education system, he said.
Thiel noted, however, that he was “not quite as worried” about the rest of the student population.
Students who are not at the top are encouraged to participate in vocational training or other specialized programs — but the nation’s pre-eminent students are given few choices once they are accepted into universities such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford, he said.
Students who are accepted into these schools are pressured to enroll, Thiel explained, and are criticized if they choose to go into specialized programs. Instead, they are encouraged to follow paths typical of the top schools, resulting in less risk-taking by the country’s cream of the crop.
Thiel said that regaining the momentum of technological innovation requires reducing the burden of risk-taking for top students.
He also said he sees the current education system as “problematic” because students are not aware of what they are doing — after each education step, there is typically another, he said, creating an atmosphere in which one remains in school without knowing precisely what he or she would like to do after graduation.
This pattern perpetuates a cycle of “avoiding the question of the future,” Thiel said.
Thiel explained that the future of the United States is very uncertain: While it is currently the most technologically advanced country in the world, he said, China is aware that in 20 years it will look just like — at least technologically — the current United States.
As such, technological innovation is of paramount importance regardless of what the future holds for the country, Thiel said.
“Technology is the key … for a much better future,” he added.