When we ran this post last week about this exclusive showing of a CNBC documentary about Peter Thiel’s 20 Under 20 fellowship, all of the tickets were scooped up by the end of the day. So CNBC decided to upgrade to a slightly larger theater for Wednesday night and is opening up a very small allotment of extra tickets this morning.
CNBC’s documentary is about Thiel’s controversial $100,000 fellowship to lure brilliant teenagers out of universities. Thiel has called higher education the next bubble, after real estate and dot-coms. He told TechCrunch last year, “A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed. Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States. To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It’s like telling the world there’s no Santa Claus.”
So he backed up his beliefs with a provocative fellowship program. Called 20 Under 20, a select handful of brilliant, ambitious young people get $100,000 to ideally move to the San Francisco Bay Area to work on whatever they want for two years. They include the youngest person to have ever created nuclear fusion, teens that are working on medical imaging, mobile apps and solutions to alleviate global poverty and inequality.
Called “20 Under 20: Transforming Tomorrow,” CNBC’s documentary looks inside The Thiel Foundation and follows the journey of the 2012 application process and the personal stories of many of the teens who apply. The trailer is here.
They’re holding an exclusive preview of the documentary at the AMC Metreon in San Francisco on Wednesday night with a private reception afterward hosted by Julia Boorstin. We already sold out of the original batch. Tickets are first come, first serve. The show ultimately airs on Aug. 13 and 14 at 10pm ET/PT.