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Peter Thiel’s unexpected job requirement

By
Dan Primack
Dan Primack
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By
Dan Primack
Dan Primack
Down Arrow Button Icon
May 14, 2012, 4:21 PM ET

FORTUNE — Want to work for Peter Thiel’s new macro-global hedge fund? Then you had better have a “high GPA from top-tier university,” according to this job ad first spotted by Slate blogger Matt Yglesias.

This may not sound terribly surprising, unless you remember that Thiel has literally been paying top college students to drop out. Sure the goal was to identify promising young entrepreneurs rather than hedge fund analysts, but there is more than a bit of irony here — if not outright hypocrisy.

What if one of Thiel’s dropouts fails as an entrepreneur, or decides that they’d like to do something else. Say, become a hedge fund analyst. Will their former “top tier” universities allow them to return, or give that spot to someone who values it a bit more?

I guess this is kind of like then Thiel recently decided to teach a computer science course at Stanford — which happens to be his own alma mater. Or like how each of the partners in his venture capital firm also have undergraduate degrees (save for Sean Parker, who isn’t a fulltime partner anymore).

Do as I pay, not as I do?

Sign up for Dan’s daily email newsletter on deals and deal-makers: GetTermSheet.com

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By Dan Primack
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