AXIOS
Herb Scribner
August 15, 2026
Some of the tech industry’s most influential CEOs have an ambitious message for young people in the age of AI: Skip college altogether.
The big picture: Elon Musk, Alex Karp and Peter Thiel are challenging the four-year degree as the default path for elite talent — and, in some cases, building their own alternatives.
- Of course, critics warn those CEO-backed programs may train young people for a particular role or company without setting them up for success elsewhere.
- David Deming, an economist and the Danoff Dean of Harvard, told Axios: “It’s in a company’s interest to train a person in a very specific thing to do things their way. They don’t really care about giving you skills that are valuable outside the company.”