Stanford or a Crypto Startup? Bull Market Lures Top Students

Mimi St Johns couldn’t wait to drop out of Stanford University.

The 24-year-old computer science and German double major, former Thiel Capital intern and software engineer had the pedigree to land a coveted role in the upper echelons of Corporate America. But last fall, as the so-called crypto winter started to thaw, she hatched a plan to launch a blockchain company. She dropped out of school, two quarters shy of a degree, in January and decamped to Miami to go into into stealth mode for her startup, Verbum Labs.

“The only thing I regret is not doing it sooner,” she said.

With the ...