The idea isn't that Harvard magically gives you value just by showing up, but that there is opportunity to extract value there. An early investment in Harvard may lead you to joining the ranks as a researcher, for example. Gates and Zuckerberg realized that wasn't their future, so they aborted and got on the right track for themselves. But Thiel suggests that there is still a future for those who wish to strive to join a Harvard "Old Boys Club".

In contrast, he suggests that a Reed College has no such opportunity. Let's say Jobs did graduate. Then what? Maybe he'd become a professor there? What can one really get out of Reed College? More likely he'd just end up back in industry, at which point it was a waste of resources to invest in academia; a waste which Thiel would consider to be a dunce move.