Yu learned from his experience at Pricemash that he was not cut-out for a management position and belonged closer to the technical side of a business. He believes his decision to manage his company was a hasty one.

“I misconstrued that as, ‘I need to work with what I have,’ rather than ‘I need to build the skills that I want to have,’” Yu said.

Lutsky remembers the difficulties he and Schluntz had getting off the ground upon moving to California.

“It was pretty much me and my co-founder running around San Francisco all day going to various hotels and businesses, getting kicked out of various hotels and businesses,” Lutsky said. “Going from sort of a Harvard lifestyle to the depths of being kicked out of hotels was an abrupt transition. There were very hectic days of not much sleep, getting phones hung up on us [while] talking to more professional clients.”

REGRETS?

“I’m trying to think of some juicy ugly stories...but I can’t think of anything. I’ve had a wonderful time so far,” said Connor N. Zwick, a former member of the class of 2015.

Zwick left Harvard after his freshman year to work on his “coco controller” after becoming a Thiel Fellow. The slide-on “coco” cell phone case features an analog stick and tactile buttons, which allow users to play games on their phones the same way they would play on hand-held consoles.

Zwick and co-founder Colton T. Gyulay, another former member of the class of 2015, put up their Kickstarter website to crowdsource funds for their company in August 2012. They took the page down after less than three days when they decided to redesign the case to accommodate the iPhone 5, and consequently raised over $26,000 in the process. They plan to relaunch sometime this year.

Like Zwick, other former students had similarly positive comments regarding their choices to take leaves of absence.

“The greater danger at the time was in not leaving, the regret we would’ve had had somebody else pursued this kind of thing and been successful in the space [while] the two of us had been sitting around in class,” Lutsky said. “Even if everything were to fall apart tomorrow, I still think I would have made the same decision.”

“I actually don’t regret it at all. And I think I would have regretted it if—well, one, if the business failed—but more importantly if we were away from Boston,” Capodilupo said. “The biggest drawback I experienced was just being away from all the relationships I’d built,...not having that daily interaction of going to a party Friday night with everybody. It’s a dramatic difference that I didn’t think was going to be as stark.”

Yu echoed similar sentiment.

“Do I regret taking my leave? No, not at all,” Yu said. “The only downside is that I’m still technically a freshman.”

IN THE SHADOW OF “THE SOCIAL NETWORK”

After the 2010 film was released and since the Thiel Fellowship has gained so much publicity, dropping out of college to make millions of dollars almost seems trendy.