A year after the announcement of the first batch of Thiel Fellows, opinions on the program ranged from the skeptical and critical to the laudatory and optimistic. In 2012, Eric Markowitz offered a mixed review of the Thiel Fellowship in Inc. magazine. In 2013 the program attracted criticism for its limited results. In April, an article by Richard Nieva for PandoDaily took a close look at how the first batch of Thiel Fellows had fared, finding that some had succeeded and others planned to return to school in the fall once their two years were up. In September, academic Vivek Wadhwa wrote that the Thiel Fellowship had failed to produce any notable successes to date, and even its limited successes were instances where the Thiel Fellows were working in collaboration with more experienced individuals. Also in October, former Harvard University President Larry Summers said at The Nantucket Project conference: "I think the single most misdirected bit of philanthropy in this decade is Peter Thiel's special program to bribe people to drop out of college." A Thiel Fellow and a mentor for the Thiel Fellowship subsequently published an op-ed response in TechCrunch, restating the Thiel Fellowship's thesis and arguing that a four-year liberal arts education was becoming less relevant. Recipients Notable recipients Notable recipients include the following people (year they were awarded the fellowship is indicated in parentheses): Laura Deming (2011) – founder and partner at Longevity Fund Dale J. Stephens (2011) – founder of Year On, formerly UnCollege, a gap year program with training in work skills and life skills Dylan Field (2012) – co-founder and CEO of Figma Taylor Wilson (2012) – the second youngest person to produce nuclear fusion Ritesh Agarwal (2013) – founder & CEO of OYO Rooms Austin Russell (2013) – founder and CEO of Luminar Technologies and the world's youngest self-made billionaire as of 2021 Vitalik Buterin (2014) – co-creator of Ethereum Stacey Ferreira (2015) – co-founder of Forge, a platform for gig workers Simon Tian (2015) – creator of the Neptune Pine, a crowd-funded smartwatch Cathy Tie (2015) – founder of Ranomics and Partner at Cervin Ventures Boyan Slat (2016) – founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup Iddris Sandu (2018) – co-founder of Spatial Labs Joshua Browder (2018) – founder & CEO of DoNotPay, an automated legal firm Erin Smith (2019) – creator of software to detect Parkinson's Disease References External links Fellowships