
Peter Thiel AMA - jordanbrown
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2g4g95/peter_thiel_technology_entrepreneur_and_investor/
======
ihnorton
Interesting 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
We 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.

~~~
hkmurakami
My friend (who completed a computational biology PhD but was dismayed by the
small likelyhood of being able to do meaningful science and left to do a ML
based startup) has taken the route of becoming independently wealthy himself
and then privately fund researchers he personally knows with his own wealth.

One way to circumvent a broken system I guess.

~~~
williamcotton
I feel like that would only work if many thousands of people had that attitude
because the likelihood of a single person becoming independently wealthy is
very small. Even if your friend was successful he would only be limited to
assisting in a small number of scientific advances.

Wouldn't it make sense for your friend to try and organize a group of people
with similar goals so everyone can work together to achieve them?

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jordanbrown
Intriguing.

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
right? B/c if there is one thing I wouldn't call Elon Musk, it would be
"charismatic". Maybe in private he comes of differently

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prawn
A 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?

~~~
chickenfeet
When 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
Respectfully, I think you slightly misunderstand the relative economics of
being an author and being Peter Thiel.

~~~
downandout
You are right in one respect - even if the book became a number one
bestseller, Peter Thiel is unlikely to feel the impact financially. But since
he wrote a book in the first place, he wants _something_ out of it. Whether he
did it for money, increased fame, admiration, or respect, the book must do
well for any of those things to come.

So while his motivation may be different than most authors, the path he must
follow to make the book do well is largely the same. We'll likely see more
things you wouldn't expect to see him do. A billionaire's ego is on the line.

~~~
hkmurakami
And the most likely one (at least imo) would be to spread his ideas as far as
possible. A book is a great medium to reach people who wouldn't otherwise
actively seek out information outside of their current scope, by making a
stack of physical objects appear in their field of vision and inviting them to
take notice.

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arjie
Most 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_tec...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2g4g95/peter_thiel_technology_entrepreneur_and_investor/ckfnmlp)

~~~
return0
I guess he means that libertarianism is mainly anti-statism, with statism
being the imposed/de-facto religion nowadays.

On the other hand, the blind faith in the 'forces of the market' is another
politically deistic stance, so i don't know how 'politically atheist' it is.

~~~
humanrebar
> the blind faith in the 'forces of the market' is another politically deistic
> stance

It's really humanist. It's the idea that none of us is as smart as all of us.
Markets are considered distorted when they aren't free or start to resemble
other types of organizations like autocracies, aristocracies, plutocracies,
kleptocracies, etc.

So there is faith, but it's in humanity as a group, not magic math per se.

~~~
return0
It's the idea that none of us is as smart as all of us

That's the idea behind democracy. I believe the idea behind libertarianism is
quite the opposite (that the few that are better should not be hindered by the
hivemind).

------
onedev
"At 22, I didn't think it was important to meet people."

I thought that was interesting.

~~~
jordanbrown
Very interesting. I wonder what he thinks now.

~~~
jeffreyrogers
There was a similar follow up question on Reddit. Unfortunately he didn't
answer that. It would have been interesting to hear his perspective.

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eglover
He was also just on The Tim Ferriss Show:

[http://fourhourworkweek.com/2014/09/09/peter-
thiel/](http://fourhourworkweek.com/2014/09/09/peter-thiel/)

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tienlehut
Q: Is Palantir a front for the CIA?

@peterthiel: No, the CIA is a front for Palantir.

------
dfc

      > 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
There 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
Interesting, I'd like to read more about this, is there a term for this sort
of practice?

~~~
nickff
This 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)

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quadyeast
awesome - "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
Maybe 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
The problem isn't deciding to want to do it, it's to actually find a way to do
it.

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DAddYE
> 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.

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1337biz
_As 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
[http://www.quora.com/How-has-Rene-Girard-shaped-Peter-
Thiels...](http://www.quora.com/How-has-Rene-Girard-shaped-Peter-Thiels-
worldview-investing-strategy-and-religious-faith)

~~~
meowface
Interesting 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.

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mempko
Soubds 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
What gave you that impression? I did not get that vibe at all. What is best
for the overall country seemed like his primary concern.

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lukasm
>What is the Straussian interpretation of Zero to One?

>Perhaps you should not become an entrepreneur...

eh?

~~~
Fede_V
Leo 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)

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notastartup
Just asked Peter Thiel a question. I hope he responds.

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staunch
> _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
> 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
Exactly 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
And 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
Jumping from airplanes didn't require any changes to biology, even with much
greater falls.

~~~
philh
I believe ericd is talking about the ascent, not the descent.

If you want to jump over a building, you need to depart the ground at the same
speed as you'll hit it on the way down (more, because of air resistance). The
forces applied to your body are just as lethal in both directions.

(This specifically applies to jumping, where all your acceleration comes at
the beginning of the journey. Jetpacks, planes, etc. get around the problem by
letting you accelerate while in midair.)

~~~
icebraining
_If you want to jump over a building, you need to depart the ground at the
same speed as you 'll hit it on the way down_

Well, the horizontal speed can be gained more slowly (running before the
jump). Only the vertical speed needs immediate acceleration.

~~~
ericd
Yeah, it's just that the vertical is much more than enough to kill you (more
than the energy from jumping off the top of the building), so the horizontal
is kind of irrelevant.

