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Peter Thiel AMA
- onedev 12y ago"At 22, I didn't think it was important to meet people." I thought that was interesting.
- m52go 12y agoGuess he was hyper-focused on law at the time? It is still an interesting statement.
- jordanbrown 12y agoVery interesting. I wonder what he thinks now.
- jeffreyrogers 12y agoThere was a similar follow up question on Reddit. Unfortunately he didn't answer that. It would have been interesting to hear his perspective.
- drzaiusapelord 12y agoJesus, he's exactly like Peter Gregory from HBO's Silicon Valley.
- Mikeb85 12y agoPretty sure that character was modelled after him...
- Russell91 12y agoYea, haha. Reminds me of a time when I was a kid, and a friend of mine hadn't learned much about the four mountains surrounding Tucson. When I told them their names, he said, "Wow, they named them after the high schools."
- drzaiusapelord 12y agoYep, he was. I was just surprised to see it wasn't much of an exaggeration.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- jordanbrown 12y agoIntriguing. Question: What did you think when you first met Elon Musk? Peter: "Very smart, very charismatic, and incredibly driven -- a very rare combination, since most people who have one of these traits learn to coast on the other two. It was kind of scary to be competiting against his startup in Palo Alto in Dec 1999-Mar 2000."
- ranran876 12y agoright? B/c if there is one thing I wouldn't call Elon Musk, it would be "charismatic". Maybe in private he comes of differently
- eglover 12y agoHe was also just on The Tim Ferriss Show: http://fourhourworkweek.com/2014/09/09/peter-thiel/ http://fourhourworkweek.com/2014/09/09/peter-thiel/
- 1337biz 12y agoAs a Girardian acolyte, I'm curious if there any private truths you can reveal to us? I am not getting this. Anyone care to enlighten me?
- shill 12y agohttp://www.quora.com/How-has-Rene-Girard-shaped-Peter-Thiels-worldview-investing-strategy-and-religious-faith http://www.quora.com/How-has-Rene-Girard-shaped-Peter-Thiels...
- meowface 12y agoInteresting read. This is the first time I've been introduced to Girard's theories. I don't agree with a lot of his claims but I think he (and others; his theories aren't entirely novel) definitely stumbled upon a real aspect of humanity. I suspect the real "truth" is a greater superset theory that encompasses some of these theories and also unrelated theories and observations, though. Girard espouses a lot of absolute claims ("all human behavior is mimetic") while discounting other potential factors and certain counter-examples.
- prawn 12y agoA few of his answers seem brief when I wished he had time to answer in full. Selling something aside, I've always wondered why people commit to an AMA and then don't dedicate the time to over-delivering with comprehensive answers? Is it just a matter of something being better than nothing?
- rooster8 12y agoAs someone who struggles to distill his answers, I thought there was an eloquence and wisdom in his brevity.
- pbreit 12y agoYeah, some seemed overly brief. But I think overall he got his points across pretty well and I suspect it might not be his preferred medium for such topics. Even his book was largely based on his Stanford lectures.
- chickenfeet 12y agoWhen the sole reason you're doing an AMA is because you're promoting something - in this case Thiel's book that's about to out - you can do a brief appearance and get enough exposure. He doesn't care about doing an AMA otherwise, I bet.
- patio11 12y agoRespectfully, I think you slightly misunderstand the relative economics of being an author and being Peter Thiel.
- jjoonathan 12y agoRespectfully, I think you underestimate Peter Thiel's ability to leverage the prestige and airport bookstore placement that come from good sales numbers. Little fish may not matter matter on their own, but if the big fish follow the little fish (even unconsciously) then feeding the little fish is a good strategy for subtly influencing the big fish.
- quadyeast 12y agoawesome - "Bonus tip for philanthropists: Find a way to sue Intellectual Ventures. If we could get rid of these parasites, we'd all be better off."
- jacquesm 12y agoMaybe some of the worlds largest philanthropists could settle this matter during the next major boardmeeting of Microsoft. They're already busy in the field of parasite extermination, it seems like it would be a small broadening of the scope to me.
- mseebach 12y agoThe problem isn't deciding to want to do it, it's to actually find a way to do it.
- staunch 12y ago> The restaurant industry in SF is very competitive and very non-capitalistic (e.g., very hard way to make money), whereas Google is very capitalistic and has had no serious competition since 2002. Either situation could change very quickly. A meal delivery restaurant chain could take SF by storm and rake in billions. A startup could launch tomorrow that begins rapidly stealing Google's market share. Nothing prevents this but the lack of people willing and able to do it. Private individuals are free to upend industries without fear of unreasonable government interference. This is what capitalism is and it's alive and well in most industries.
- jjoonathan 12y ago> Nothing prevents [disrupting google] but the lack of people willing and able to do it. Nothing prevents people leaping over skyscrapers in a single bound except the lack of people able to do it.
- staunch 12y agoExactly right. We're just a few years and a new kind of exoskeleton product away from able to leap skyscrapers if we want to. Materials science, computing, and battery technology are getting there. Someone will just have to actually make it. Good example.
- ericd 12y agoAnd the changes in biology necessary to resist the acceleration required to impart that much kinetic energy on the body in the amount of time that you're in contact with the ground?
- icebraining 12y agoJumping from airplanes didn't require any changes to biology, even with much greater falls.
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- notastartup 12y agoJust asked Peter Thiel a question. I hope he responds.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- tienlehut 12y agoQ: Is Palantir a front for the CIA? @peterthiel: No, the CIA is a front for Palantir.
- DAddYE 12y ago> And more generally: the NSA has been hovering up all the data in the world, because it has no clue what it is doing. "Big data" really means "dumb data." I think he nailed it. Working a bit with "big data" I 100% agree with him.
- ihnorton 12y agoInteresting point on science funding practices: I think there's been a Gresham's Law in science funding in this country, as the political people who are nimble in the art of writing government grants have gradually displaced the eccentric and idiosyncratic people who typically make the best scientists. The eccentric university professor is a species that is going extinct fast.
- D_Alex 12y agoWe need a "save the eccentric professor" fund. But how would we distribute the money? Edit: Actually, just increasing the science funding, say by 1% of the total government budget, would probably solve the problem.
- dlss 12y agoI think the issue is that eccentric professors aren't as good at competing for grant money as people who treat academics like any other career. Increasing the funding probably just creates more of the latter, not of the former.
- return0 12y agoNo, the money would go to the guys who are best networked to publish in the highest-ranked journals every 2 months.
- rattray 12y agoI'm not sure that's as big a problem in academia as in other circles. I would imagine that academic researchers (professors) are highly discerning among their friends based to a large extent on competence. It's like how recruiting for engineers is best done through the networks of your engineers; they really only hang out with top people anyway (give or take).
- mhurron 12y agoThese people are still human, they can and will be swayed by something really well presented. If they weren't it wouldn't be a problem now.
- arjie 12y agoMost of his comments I can understand, but to be honest I can not glean a shred of understanding from the following answer to the question about his Christian faith and libertarianism: > To think of Christ as a politician might be the easiest way to get him all wrong. The theological claim that Christ is the "son of God" is also the anti-political claim that Augustus Caesar (the son of the divine Julius Caesar) is not the "son of God." So I think that Christ should be thought of as the first "political atheist," who did not believe that the existing political order is divinely ordained. Now, I think that there is lot of resonance between political atheism and libertarianism, even if they are not strictly identical... http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2g4g95/peter_thiel_technology_entrepreneur_and_investor/ckfnmlp http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2g4g95/peter_thiel_tec...
- rattray 12y agoHopefully Thiel clarifies what he means by "political atheism". All I could find on the net was an urban dictionary entry[0] and, well, this[1]. [0] http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Political%20Atheist http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Political%20A... > A person or persons who has a disbelief in the ruling of a dominating government with morals of any kind. Those who have belief that not everything produced by politics or the media hold truth of any kind. He/she whom holds their own belief in what is wrong or right not based on what is fed to them by what the general public allows themselves to be brainwashed with. [1] http://politicalatheist.com/ http://politicalatheist.com/
- nopinsight 12y agoJulius Caesar was the first historical Roman deified as a god, and Augustus promoted himself as a son of god, partly or mostly for political reasons. Christ denied the prevailing notion of the day that Julius Caesar is a god (and Augustus is a son of god). Therefore, he is an anti-establishment, and an atheist or unbeliever in the political realm. Thiel refers to this as 'political atheism'. In his last sentence, he mentioned that libertarianism is related to 'political atheism', which was Christ's view of the political order of the day. The commonality I make out of his reasoning is that both Christianity in those days and current-day libertarianism are anti-establishment. A very interesting shift in frame of reference. And you can point out that, politically, some Christian beliefs have in practice become part of the establishment today, which sort of contradicts his point. What do you think? Please correct me if I'm wrong. My scant knowledge of the Roman era is mostly from Crash Course [1] (highly recommended for learning in an entertaining way, and I believe most of the contents are good too) and a bit from Wikipedia [2]. [1] https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/crash-course1/crash-course-world-history https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/crash-course1/cr... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Caesar#Deification http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Caesar#Deification
- lukasm 12y ago>What is the Straussian interpretation of Zero to One? >Perhaps you should not become an entrepreneur... eh?
- Fede_V 12y agoLeo Strauss was an influential neoconservative philosopher who thought that a lot of key classical texts had an 'obvious' reading which was propaganda for the masses, and a 'secret' reading which only the adepts could decipher. He emphasized this especially to Greek texts from Plato. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Strauss#Strauss_on_reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Strauss#Strauss_on_reading
- dfc 12y ago> many of the bad monopolies in our society involve the unholy > coalition of urban slumlords and pseudo-environmentalists. Does anyone know who these "bad monopolists" are?
- Spooky23 12y agoThere is a whole shadowy world of property owners who own poorly maintained slum property that they buy cheap, fix up to a minimum standard, and basically farm for rent at premium rates. Typically in most cities there is a cartel of a few dozen people who own a large proportion of this type of property. It's difficult to identify them as they work through shell companies. Much of this property is subsidized under the Federal Section 8 program, which pays a "prevailing rent" rate for low income property. Often these rents approach the rates paid for luxury apartment complexes in the suburbs. These folks need to keep the areas around their property poor and ignorant. So they work with phony "progressive" mouthpieces/lobbyists that block good construction projects using the environmental impact review process. They'll blow up issues like traffic impact, greenspace, impact on storm sewers, etc to block things like medium-density housing. (Typically, they are silent when their sponsors drop a 200,000 square foot big-box + strip mall nearby)
- zwtaylor 12y agoInteresting, I'd like to read more about this, is there a term for this sort of practice?
- nickff 12y agoThis is a form of the "Bootleggers and Baptists" phenomenon described by Bruce Yandle.[1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists
- abelmolina 12y agoIn San Francisco, the people that own the slum houses around 16th and Mission where rent is actually quite expensive - some of them probably connected with the mafia groups that do more in the city that many people are aware of, as the Leland Yee arrest showed...
- mempko 12y agoSoubds like rich person who wants to stay rich. Since I am not rich, I have vastly different values. I can not relate to this man at all.
- randyrand 12y agoWhat gave you that impression? I did not get that vibe at all. What is best for the overall country seemed like his primary concern.