[Man, voiceover] 20 Thiel winners all under age 20.

$100,000 to drop out of school and pursue our dream.

This is Teen Technorati.

Welcome to the Summit!

(rock music)

The Fellowship Summit marks the first time

I've ever presented to the world,

to our peer community that we came from.

I'm trying to find people to talk to.

Hey, Kevin, right?

I'm Kaushik.

I remember being a part of the Summit

a year back in New York.

And now I am one of the Fellows.

Kind of full-circle that it happened.

For me wanting to be a Fellow

and seeing these people and kind of keeping them

as my role models to being one of them.

How was your journey as a Fellow—you're 2013, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Andrew, how are you doing?

Last time we met, it was at the finalist round, right?

Right.

Is this right now?

Uh, actually, yeah, it is happening right now.

Okay, right now? You wanna go?

Yeah, sure.

Right now, we're going to go to a breakout session

where people talk about life-hacking techniques,

productivity hacks, a bunch of them.

So I bet this will be super interesting.

A habit is something that you do regularly.

So there must be something that's triggering you to do it,

like when I get up, I brush my teeth.

That's the trigger.

And there are other things that affect

whether you have a habit.

So sometimes, there's a habit you want,

but there's skill you don't have.

If that's the case, there's this strong averse effect,

this is like a stopping arrow.

Hi, I'm Kaushik, nice to meet you.

[Woman] What fellow are you?

2014.

Congratulations! That's amazing.

Thank you so much.

So this year, in fact, I am one of the 20 fellows.

And the attendees will look up to me

or will ask me how I became a Fellow.

So that's a responsibility,

and one that I hope I can carry out

to the best of my ability.

It's a low-cost robotics platform.

This is just a prototype.

We have a guy in China working on better sensors for us.

You have a prototype, it works?

Yeah, we've been working on it for about two years.

And you're 14?

I'm 13.

13? Nice.

How old do you think I am? I'm curious.

I thought that you were—

Actually, when you talk, you look older,

but you must be very young.

I'm 19.

What? 19.

You're kidding me.

I'm not kidding you.

What? 19.

That's ridiculous.

I had the benefit of skipping high school

and going straight to uni.

The fact that I'm a minor with an undergraduate degree

means a lot more than it should.

But it does mean something. (laughs)

Right, right, I agree.

So I should probably go back to school. (laughs)

That's not at all what I'm saying.

This is the Fellowship hoodie they gave all the Fellows.

It says, 20.

So we're the 20 on the 20.

I feel like many of the people who I'm meeting

look at the hoodie and they go, Oh, you're a Fellow.

I feel it's kind of like the identifying mark,

and it's definitely exciting to be recognized.

We're right now walking towards the main auditorium,

and I feel everyone is inside

because of the Fellowship talks are happening right now.

(applause)

My fellow contrarians, like you,

I realized early on

that a traditional path was not the way for me.

You're the ones who aren't afraid to be different,

you're the ones who are down to pursue

something weird, but something important,

with single-minded obsession,

to be bold and to never settle.

'Cause, the truth is, if we want a better future,

it's not gonna happen automatically.

We gotta make it happen, and we gotta start now.

Thanks. (applause)

In closing, we are going

to do a Q/A session with our Fellows.

I'm Catherine Ray.

I'm Shantanu.

I'm Kaushik.

I'm Alex.

Hi, I'm Lucy.

I'm Rebecca Jolitz.

I'm Thomas.

I left high school after my freshman year a few years back.

I was very fortunate to have met the 2011 generation

and to see minors who were taking a giant risk in their life

to change the world.

I didn't think that I would get the Fellowship.

And I really put the Fellows up on this magical pedestal.

And there's something very important

that Danielle said to me: that she has to remember

that Peter Thiel puts his pants on every morning.

The guy who actually convinced me to apply

for the Fellowship was like,

Alex, you're totally—you're gonna get it, you got this.

And you're totally the caliber to apply.

So I actually bet him .25 percent of my winnings, $250,

that I would not get the Fellowship.

And then when I did, there's actually a photo of me

handing over that money and eating my words.

This is my very first Summit.

It's amazing to meet you.

It's amazing to meet the future.

It's amazing to see in other people

where you began and what possibilities lie ahead.

I've been warned multiple times (mumbles) my echo chamber,

that you get stuck here and you feel this is the world,

but the ultimate idea is that you're creating things

to help the wider world in general.

You're trying to make things that'll help

the next billion people, and that's a big dream.

At the same time, just being very true to myself.

And finding myself over the course of two years.

[Man, Voiceover] We've made it this far.

Now the future is ours for the taking.

Which one of us will find success in Silicon Valley?

Find out in the next season of Teen Technorati.

(rock music)

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