Paper Belt on Fire: How Renegade Investors Sparked a Revolt Against the University

Written by a successful venture capitalist (and university dropout), this book is part memoir, part guide for the next generation of innovators who seek an alternative to the traditional path in higher education.

“Part adventure tale, part manifesto, Paper Belt on Fire is a battle cry for anyone who ever dreamed of wresting power back from corrupt institutions—or of nailing the truth to the cathedral door.”
—Peter Thiel, author of Zero to One

Paper Belt on Fire is the unlikely account of how two outsiders with no experience in finance—a charter school principal and defrocked philosopher—start a venture capital fund to short the higher education bubble. Against the contempt of the education establishment, they discover, mentor, and back the leading lights in the next generation of dropout innovators and in the end make their investors millions.

Can such a madcap strategy help renew American creativity? Who would do such a thing?

This story is the behind-the-scenes romp of one team that threw educational authorities into a panic. It fuses real-life personal drama with history, science, and philosophy to show how higher education and other institutions must evolve to meet the dire challenges of tomorrow.