One thing that struck me about this debate is college athletics. In particular basketball and football as athletes in those sports tend to make money from day 1 in college (although the money is made for the college/NCAA). Despite the fact that there are minor league versions for both of these sports, they aren't well regarded.
It would seem like minor league basketball is what Thiel is advocating, yet no one is interested in going to it, nor recruiting from it. The best players are recruited from college, and that seems to be the way everyone likes it.
There are always the occassional superstars at a young age -- Gates/Zuckerberg...James/Bryant, but they are clearly rare and imitating them is almost certainly folly. No one would suggest recruiting directly from high school is a good idea on a scale of more than a couple of athletes per year (at most). Just thoughts.
I think the primary difference between athletics and entrepreneurship is the natural talent/experience equation. In a sport like basketball, a certain level of inborn talent and physical prowess is required. No amount of practice and experience will get you into the pros if you don't have the talent to begin with. There are also strongly diminishing returns for experience because as you get smarter about the game, physical aging reduces your abilities in other ways.
Entrepreneurship is extremely different because experience holds much more weight and can easily overcome a lack of natural talent (in a skill like programming, for instance), or open up a new role. Someone who drops out of school to join the NBA and then gets laughed at by recruiters is basically screwed. Someone who drops out of school to build a prototype and gets laughed at by VCs or customers now has much more practical experience than his friends who are still in school and is in a good position to either try again or look for a job with the valuable skills he's gained through his failed attempt.
All this talk of 'superstars' and 'lottery winners' completely misses the point. If you want to be an entrepreneur, trying to be an entrepreneur, regardless of how badly you fail, is guaranteed to teach you relevant skills. Expensive colleges are not.
But this doesn't answer why aren't the minor leagues a bigger deal? I'd argue that most basketball players, even those that are really strong, feel that college offers two things that the minor/farm leagues don't:
1) The best colleagues. The best US ballers not in the NBA play NCAA ball. Not the NBA farm league. Colleges, from the Ivies to the UCs, are where the best students are. The benefit of going to college is you're around the best CS students AND the best physics, bio, literature, econ, and math students.
2) It's a hedge. While college degrees aren't on the forefront of the minds of college players, especially D1 players, it is something that is in the equation. There is a belief that they can be spotted for the NBA by playing college ball, and if it doesn't work out, they still get a college degree (unless they go to USC).
The only thing that twists this up is athletes get a full ride scholarship. And many here complain that college costs too much. But recall that the best students will have their college paid for them (and in some countries college is free). Cost ends up being inversely proportional to perceived potential (with need factored in too).
This ends up being almost exactly the scenario that Thiel is advocating. Top students get lots of funding. Less good students get a little. Average students get none, and rich students with average potential fund things out of their own pocket. Those who are poor with average potential are just screwed. Welcome to college in 2011.
NCAA : college :: Pro sports : real life.
Thiel is saying, "Think outside the box. The best way to prepare for real life may not be to go to college." His 20 under 20 program is seeking to demonstrate this by starting at the top. He's seeking to demonstrate what happens if very exceptional kids, who could go to the very best colleges, elect instead to do something else. The analogy to sports would be someone offering a non-college sports program for the very best high school athletes, who if they went to a college would have a excellent chance of being accepted by a pro team.
It would seem like minor league basketball is what Thiel is advocating, yet no one is interested in going to it, nor recruiting from it. The best players are recruited from college, and that seems to be the way everyone likes it.
There are always the occassional superstars at a young age -- Gates/Zuckerberg...James/Bryant, but they are clearly rare and imitating them is almost certainly folly. No one would suggest recruiting directly from high school is a good idea on a scale of more than a couple of athletes per year (at most). Just thoughts.