Ridgewood High School Alumni Named Thiel Fellow

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, the Thiel Foundation today named 20 individuals as the next class of Thiel Fellows. The Fellowship program, which launched in 2011, encourages talented young people with big ideas to start companies instead of attending college.

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“In a world where conformity rules, these young founders are setting out to reimagine every industry they touch,” said Brian Rowen, President of The Thiel Foundation. “No goal is too ambitious; this year’s class is innovating in fields as varied as energy production, genetic testing, AI, and agriculture.”

During the two-year Fellowship program, fellows receive $100,000 and mentorship from The Thiel Foundation’s network of technology founders, investors, and scientists. The only requirement is that fellows pause their college enrollment and focus exclusively on building their technology or company.

“Young founders with radical projects know universities will only hold them back. More than a third of this year’s applicants never applied to college and instead are following their own path,” said Alex Handy, Director of the Thiel Fellowship. “Members of this year’s class are not preoccupied with chasing trends, whether in Silicon Valley or on TikTok. They are acting on concrete plans to improve the world around them.”

One Thiel Fellow was a gentleman named Sonny Mo a Ridgewood High School Alumni . Sonny Mo is the Co-Founder and CEO of Bloom, an educational investing app for teenagers aged 13-17. Bloom charges $15/mo for access to investing under 18, 80+ financial educational modules, fractional investing for stocks and ETFs through UTMA/UGMA custodial brokerage accounts.

Prior to founding Bloom, Sonny was a Software Engineer at Snowflake from May 2020 to August 2020. Sonny also worked as an Engineer at Yoco from May 2019 to September 2019. Cress Health was Sonny’s first venture, which they co-founded in December 2018 and ran until August 2019.

Sonny Mo attended Brown University, where they earned a Bachelor of Science in computer science and physics.