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☆ For God, for country, for rain
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-14 | by ( Jessica Lucas | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +24 min

It's 9:30 a.m., and Augustus Doricko, the mulleted 24-year-old founder of the cloud-seeding company Rainmaker, is clutching a coffee. There's a long way to go before cloud seeding becomes a viable option for solving one of humanity's many self-made crises. El Segundo, population 17,272, has long been a bastion of American engineering, home to aerospace and defense giants like Boeing and Raytheon. Jett Lara for BIThe burning happens every Friday around 8 p.m. at a bonfire on El Segundo Beach. One of Doricko's goals is to build a church in El Segundo to "share the grace of God with other people."

Persons: Augustus Doricko, Bruno Mars, Doricko, Jessica, I'd, Jesus, He'd, that's, Rainmaker, Lauren Sánchez, Jett Lara, Billy Ray Cyrus, God, Augustus Doricko Doricko's, Cameron Schiller, Augustus, Schiller, El, That's, it's, El Segundo, Elon Musk, Isaiah Taylor, Doricko's, Taylor, Rob Coutts, —, Jesus of Nazareth, Zer, he'd, Jason Flynt, Flynt, Terra, Michael Gibson, Sarah Tessendorf's, messaged Gibson, Michael, Gibson, Thiel, Peter Thiel, I'm, Katja Friedrich, Friedrich, Friedrich isn't, Jonathan Jennings, Kaitlyn Suski, dumbbells, Jackson Schultz, Elijah, birdsong, Schultz, We're, coffees, Mankind Organizations: MGM, Association, Aspen Ideas, Global Initiative, BI, El, Boeing, Raytheon, Space Industries, Chevrolet, Stamford Yacht Club, New Zealand, University of California, BI Doricko, drillers, Terra Seco, Thiel Foundation, Terra, tech's, Weather Locations: Vegas, Tennessee, El Segundo, Los Angeles, America, Silicon, Santa Clarita, Rainmaker, Beijing, Colorado, California, Smoky, El Segundo Beach, North Carolina, Texas, Stamford , Connecticut, New, Costa, Berkeley, Christianity, Fort Worth , Texas, Terra Seco, drawdowns, Lake Mead, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Juul, Fresno, San Jose, Dubai, UAE, Midwest, West Texas, New Mexico , Arizona , Nevada, Amsterdam, Milan

☆ Lucy Guo's second act: After the 29-year-old left Scale AI, she has the 'itch to build' something new
▼ + stars: | 2024-08-23 | by ( Sri Muppidi | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

But Lucy Guo, the 29-year-old cofounder of data labeling startup Scale AI blurs the line between the two archetypes. Yet this is the persona many have come to know since Guo left Scale AI in 2018. But, midway through the program, they pivoted again, this time to what would eventually become Scale AI. Lucy GuoThe idea of Scale AI came from a suggestion by one of their YC roommates, who proposed creating an "API for humans." Advertisement"The itch to build"After Scale AI, Guo decided to apply her learnings to a new entrepreneurial opportunity: investing.

Persons: —, Lucy Guo, Billie Eilish, Charlie XCX, Guo, she's, Adam D'Angelo, Alexandr Wang, Alex, Wang, Guo's, Cruise, Dave Fontenot, Kylie Jenner's lipsticks, Jake Paul's, Passes Organizations: Service, Business, Fry's Electronics, Carnegie Mellon University, Thiel, Facebook, Multicoin, Bond Locations: Miami, Fremont , California, San Francisco, China, hackathons, Quora

☆ 28-year-old self-made billionaire started his self-driving car company in his parents' garage—now he's worth $1.6 billion
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-24 | by ( Ashton Jackson | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

When Austin Russell was a 17-year-old high school student, he founded Luminar Technologies, which makes laser sensors that can help self-driving cars detect nearby objects. Now 28, Russell is the world's youngest self-made billionaire, according to Forbes, as Luminar competes with major companies like Tesla and Alphabet's Waymo. But self-driving cars aren't exactly commonplace on American roads, meaning Russell and Luminar have a lot of work ahead of them, despite their lofty valuations. How it differs from Tesla's approachElon Musk's Tesla also seeks to popularize self-driving cars, and Musk's approach to the technology is entirely different. Lidar could potentially change that, Russell says: Cameras can be helpful "for certain use cases," but lidar is "a huge step forward."

Persons: Austin Russell, Russell, Waymo, —, Luminar, Elon Musk's Tesla, Mario Herger, Herger, Tesla Organizations: Luminar Technologies, CNBC, Forbes, Benz, Volvo, Stanford University, Thiel, Washington Post Locations: Orlando , Florida, U.S

☆ Marc Andreessen throws his support behind an Elon Musk-Mark Zuckerberg cage fight in a talk with Peter Thiel
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-14 | by ( Will Gendron | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Marc Andreessen, speaking on a panel with Peter Thiel, backed a Zuckerberg-Musk cage fight. Andreessen and Thiel also said, unrelated, that attendees should homeschool their kids. Billionaire investor Marc Andreessen is apparently rooting for Tesla's Elon Musk and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg to square off in a cage match. He and PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel also urged the event's attendees to homeschool their children, Puck reported. Representatives for both Andreessen and Thiel did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Persons: Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Zuckerberg, Andreessen, Thiel, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Puck's Dylan Byers, Andreessen Horowitz, Puck Organizations: Morning, Allen & Company, Allen, Co, Zuckerberg, New York Times, Thiel Locations: Sun Valley , Idaho, Idaho, Silicon

☆ The world's youngest self-made billionaire 'absolutely' recommends dropping out of college to make money instead—here’s why
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-30 | by ( Ashton Jackson | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

That's according to Austin Russell, the world's youngest self-made billionaire, who dropped out of Stanford University in 2012 to start his company, Luminar Technologies, after receiving a $100,000 grant from the Peter Thiel Fellowship. CNBC Make It asked Russell, 28, if he'd recommend other student entrepreneurs to drop out. "It's just sort of the traditional approach around what you do and what you're supposed to do." What's more, he says he would have still left Stanford even if he hadn't received funding. "If you're wondering if I would have dropped out [without the grant], yeah.

Persons: Austin Russell, Peter Thiel, Russell, he'd, hadn't Organizations: Stanford University, Luminar Technologies, Peter Thiel Fellowship, CNBC, Stanford

☆ World's youngest self-made billionaire: Success comes from taking these 2 common traits 'to the extreme'
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-23 | by ( Ashton Jackson | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

It may be hard to believe that Austin Russell, the world's youngest self-made billionaire, has anything in common with others his age — but he insists that he does. The company, which Russell founded 11 years ago as a teenager, develops hardware and software meant to power self-driving cars. But rather than focusing on technological expertise or business acumen, Russell credits his journey so far to two traits common among younger generations: energy and passion. "People in their 20s have a lot of great energy," Russell tells CNBC Make It. Building such a company takes more than just passion and energy, Russell admits.

Persons: Austin Russell, Russell, Thiel, Gen Xers, they're, Forbes, —, Warren Buffett Organizations: Technologies, Thiel Fellowship, Stanford University, CNBC, Benz, Volvo Locations: Orlando , Florida, Luminar

☆ Meet Blake Resnick, a 23-year-old college dropout who went on to win a Peter Thiel-backed fellowship, supplies drones to Ukraine, and is now worth over $100 million
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Huileng Tan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Blake Resnick, the founder and CEO of Brinc Drones, is now worth $100 million, per Bloomberg. After the shooting, he cold-called the lieutenant in charge of the Las Vegas SWAT team to ask about technology that could've helped the police identify and stop an active shooter. Born in Las Vegas to a doctor and a special education teacher, Resnick's adventures with science began early on in his childhood. At 14, he built a nuclear fusion reaction in his parent's garage in Las Vegas, according to a bio on his website. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Resnick features among the Forbes 30 under 30 list of achievers in the age group in 2021 and 2022.

☆ Many of tech's power-players are alumni of Peter Thiel's controversial fellowship, which pays entrepreneurs to drop out of college. See how they made their millions.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-28 | by ( Samantha Delouya | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: 1 min

What is the Thiel Fellowship? PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel speaks during a discussion at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, in 2011. After co-founding PayPal with Elon Musk and Max Levchin, Thiel went on to found Palantir. In fact, Thiel created a fellowship in 2011 that encourages entrepreneurs to choose the path less traveled and skip college altogether. The Thiel Fellowship, which started in 2011, "gives $100,000 to young people who want to build new things instead of sitting in a classroom," according to the fellowship's website.

☆ How Charlie Javice's Frank Sale to JP Morgan Wound up in Allegations of Fraud
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-21 | by ( Katherine Long | Jack Newsham | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +21 min

Her financial aid startup, Frank, was featured in the New York Times, CNBC and Wall Street Journal. After leaving the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton business school, Javice traded on her reputation, bolstered by glowing profiles, as a successful entrepreneur. In a 2018 interview with Insider, Javice claimed Frank secured an average of $28,000 for its users, and was helping students get "thousands off their tuition." "Charlie's first company fizzled after 18 months, so after losing all her investors' money, she convinced every one of them to fund her next company, Frank." At Frank, Javice admitted she sometimes painted a more positive picture of the company's health than was supported by the facts.

☆ Peter Thiel's VC fund backs TreeCard, a fintech that plants trees when you spend
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Ryan Browne | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

TreeCard offers users a spending and money management platform tied to a debit card made from wood. TreeCardTreeCard, a climate-conscious digital money app, raised $23 million from investors in a new financing round. Though based in the U.K., TreeCard chose the U.S. as its launch market. The TreeCard app includes a game that lets users visualize how many trees their activity has helped produce. TreeCard offers clients up to 3% of annualized interest on their deposits, a feature it offers through third-party vendors.

☆ Meet a 26-year-old tech entrepreneur who says starting a company is 'an art and creative process'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-20 | by ( Gili Malinsky | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

The 26-year-old, Toronto, Canada, native co-founded her first company, Ranomics, at 18. She founded her second company, Locke Bio, a "Shopify" for pharmaceutical and other companies selling FDA approved drugs, at 23. For Tie, art and creativity is not exactly as on-the-nose as writing in iambic pentameter or dancing at Lincoln Center. "That's, I think, more of an art and creative process than something that is technical." Here's how the entrepreneur, now based in Los Angeles, has leaned into her creative, big-picture thinking to find success in fields like tech and science.

☆ Meet Dylan Field, the 30-year-old college dropout who built Figma, one of Silicon Valley's most beloved companies, and is set to become a billionaire when it sells for $20 billion to Adobe
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Paayal Zaveri | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Adobe's $20 billion bid to buy Figma makes CEO Dylan Field's stake worth $2 billion. When the design-software startup Figma was just starting out, Dylan Field, its cofounder and CEO, and his colleagues would pitch prospective customers' design teams, but they struggled with one major problem. While customers were excited about Figma's product, they hesitated to switch from existing tools. Now, Adobe's $20 billion bid to buy Figma makes Field's stake in the company worth $2 billion. Field's rise to successEvan Wallace and Dylan Field are the cofounders of Figma.

☆ Meet Dylan Field, the 30-year-old college dropout who built Figma, one of Silicon Valley's most beloved companies, and then will become a billionaire when it sells for $20 billion to Adobe
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Paayal Zaveri | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

When design-software startup Figma had just started out, cofounder and CEO Dylan Field and his colleagues would pitch potential customers' design teams, but they struggled with one major problem. While customers were excited about Figma's product, they hesitated to switch from existing tools. Now, Adobe's $20 billion bid to buy the design software startup makes Field's stake in the company worth $2 billion. Field's rise to successEvan Wallace and Dylan Field are the cofounders of Figma. After taking time off to do a product design internship at news-sharing service Flipboard, he decided not to return to school.

☆ Peter Thiel's fellowship program has birthed power players worth more than $220 billion collectively, including design software firm Figma that Adobe said it was acquiring for $20 billion
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-16 | by ( Katie Canales | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Peter Thiel's fellowship program has been doling out $100,000 checks to young entrepreneurs for 11 years now. Adobe plans to acquire the design software firm Figma in a deal worth about $20 billion, the company announced Thursday. Figma was founded in 2012 by Dylan Field with the help of Peter Theil's fellowship program. The famed Silicon Valley investor and former Trump adviser founded his Thiel Fellowship program through his foundation for students aged 22 or younger. Here are some of the projects that have come out of Thiel's fellowship.

☆ Peter Thiel was the 'puppet master' behind Facebook's political dealings, and 6 other unusual details about the billionaire tycoon's relationship with Mark Zuckerberg
▼ + stars: | 2022-02-08 | by ( Dorothy Cucci | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Peter Thiel and Mark Zuckerberg have known each other since 2004, when Thiel became Facebook's first major investor. Some believe Thiel acted as Zuckerberg's "puppet master," and Facebook employees noticed that Zuckerberg seemed to rely on Thiel in an unusual and sometimes concerning way. Zuckerberg told Thiel he should resign from Facebook's board of directors in August 2017. Thiel underestimated Facebook's potential and told Zuckerberg to sell the company in its second year. When Yahoo offered to buy Facebook for $1 billion, Thiel told Zuckerberg to take the deal — but then-22-year-old CEO said no.

☆ Inside the disastrous early days of the Thiel Fellowship and the depression, mental health issues, and drug abuse that followed
▼ + stars: | 2021-09-21 | by ( Dorothy Cucci | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

After reading the script for "The Social Network," Peter Thiel didn't like how the film portrayed him. But for some Thiel fellows, the program ended up being "disastrous," according to a new biography about the billionaire entrepreneur and venture capitalist. The staff failed to act quickly enough to help either of them, past fellows told Chafkin. I just need someone to hang out with," one Thiel fellow told Chafkin. One fellow told Chafkin that "they'd come to regard their time with Thiel not as some profound intellectual exercise, but rather, 'a super-smart PR move.'"

☆ Peter Thiel ran an SAT side hustle in high school and charged $500 to take the test for people, according to a former classmate
▼ + stars: | 2021-09-21 | by ( Dorothy Cucci | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Those who knew him in grade school say Thiel was a "joyless" childOne of Thiel's classmates told Chafkin, "I can't remember him laughing. In his senior year of high school, Thiel took the SAT for underclassmen for $500 each, according to a classmateThiel, whose own scores were near perfect, seemed bored and careless by the end of high school. Though he knew it could cost him his spot at Stanford, Chafkin says Thiel made an "unbelievably risky" move and started the lucrative side hustle. While at Stanford, Thiel argued that his peers' anti-apartheid positions were overblown and, according to Chafkin, Thiel told a Black student that apartheid "works." A man who used to play with him told Chafkin that Thiel "liked that quiet control" of determining the reality of the game.

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