
Andreessen vs. Thiel (2017) - allenleein
https://allenleein.github.io/2019/06/12/games2.html
======
idoby
Article quotes Thiel out of context, exactly reversing his intended meaning
(this is the cost of saying unpopular things, I guess).

“If your product requires advertising or salespeople to sell it, it’s not good
enough” and “Technology is primarily about product development, not
distribution" appear in Zero to One as the _wrong_ lessons from the dotcom
crash. Thiel is saying this to establish what he _doesn 't_ believe. In fact,
that entire chapter is dedicated to convincing techies that sales and
advertising _do_ matter.

~~~
CalChris
Your argument has so many negations that it's impossible to follow.

Article quotes Thiel out of context (NEGATION), exactly reversing (NEGATION)
his intended meaning (this is the cost of saying unpopular (NEGATION) things,
I guess). “If your product requires advertising or salespeople to sell it,
it’s not good enough (NEGATION)” and “Technology is primarily about product
development, not distribution (NEGATION)" appear in Zero to One as the wrong
(NEGATION) lessons from the dotcom crash. Thiel is saying this to establish
what he doesn't (NEGATION) believe. In fact, that entire chapter is dedicated
to convincing techies that sales and advertising do matter (implied NEGATION).

With all due respect, and maybe it's a lack of coffee, but I haven't got a
clue what you're trying to say.

~~~
idoby
Good point.

I think it was lack of coffee for me too, I guess (and please allow me to hide
behind English, as it isn't my first language). Also, some of those negations
are part of the original quotes, it would feel wrong to edit them, for me.

I'd edit the original comment but it feels wrong now that there are child
comments.

I'll try to do better in the future.

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rjyoungling
Lots of confusion by the author of this piece, unfortunately. Author seems to
struggle with English so perhaps that's why they accidentally misinterpreted
some points made by the investors.

Aside from the points mentioned in the comments above, I didn't quite get this
point: 'The misunderstood dogma here is to have no definite plan, work in
incremental iterations to find out what’s most valuable to customers
today(Lean Startup Methodology).'

Having no plan is the opposite of the Lean Methodology. The approach is
literally built on the notion of having a business model that contains a set
of hypotheses, which you then test, and iterate accordingly. In lean, a pivot
is defined as replacing a hypothesis in the business model with a new one.
E.g. Who you thought your market was.

All in all, format is interesting but the author doesn't seem particularly
knowledgeable in this field. Looking forward to an updated version though.

~~~
allenleein
Author here. Thank you for the precious feedback! I'm working on it.

~~~
rjyoungling
Keep at it! You're definitely on the right track.

~~~
allenleein
Thank you!

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benjaminjosephw
Interesting. Both want product-market fit; one perspective focuses on
executing well to capture the market at the right time and the other focuses
on building a differentiated product and creating a market that didn't exist
before.

These perspectives were put forward when SaaS was really taking off and
software hadn't quite eaten the world yet. The world has change a lot since
then. Creating a new software product has never been easier than it is today.
That should mean that competition is at its fiercest but we're also seeing a
massive consolidation of markets and big winners with no apparent rivals.

I think Thiel's focus on defensibility is becoming more and more important for
early-stage startups. Why bother proving out market demand if one of the big
players snaps up the opportunity from under your feet. Executing well and
moving quickly used to be good ways to defend against this happening but I
think the established incumbents are not the slow lumbering giants they once
were. They are now the software companies that won the market ten years ago.
Maybe our strategies need to change to take this into account.

~~~
scirocco
Interesting, so we might have moved from:

Big, incumbent non-SW company (Kodak example) being challenged by start-up to
Big, software incumbent (Salesforce) with massive developer resources being
challenged by start-up.

Maybe the strategies need to change - perhaps increasingly partnering with the
software incumbents (if you can't beat 'em, join 'em).. Maybe someone can add
some insight..?

~~~
hef19898
One lesson I learned since I started my business a couple of months ago, is
how important interfaces are. In practical terms, you can provide any kind of
service together with partners as long as the interfaces between these
partners are working. Doesn't matter if it is an API or just the way
collaborate with, e.g., a photographer.

This gives cloud based software companies are huge advantage, and opens all
kinds of opportunities for companies developing or working with the interfaces
between these cloud solutions and involved parties.

My impression is that all the platform start-ups, unless they have
competencies in integration of different tools and managing the corresponding
processes, are basically dead in the water once VC money is drying up. When we
talk about B2B solutions, I don't see any FB-like monopoly. So if start-ups
are pushing for that, they gona loose against the big incumbents on the
software side and against more operations oriented companies on the
integration and process side.

I might be completely wrong with that, so.

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seek3r00
In his own words: Thiel prefers to go from _zero to one_ , creating products
on which you can build a monopoly.

I think that he agrees on Andreessen about the importance of timing, but he
doesn’t consider timing alone a recipe for a successful business.

Also Thiel seems more focused on technology as a whole, rather than the
software-centric position adopted by Andreessen.

I think that both views have pros and cons, and that we would benefit from
trying to find the greatest common denominator between the two
approaches—instead of discarding that or this view.

PS: I read and enjoyed Zero to One, and I’d like to learn more about
Andreessen views. If anyone has any suggestion...

~~~
chiefalchemist
Not sure about Andreessen but Blue Ocean Shift and Blue Ocean Strategy are
solid compliments to Zero to One. The gist being, stop trying to compete in
shark-infested (blood) red water and look for blue oceans.

~~~
luckydata
there's a reason some oceans are infested with sharks

~~~
chiefalchemist
Yes. That reason is: a lack of vision and creativity.

~~~
luckydata
try "money is there"

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qez
This article seems to make a lot of mistakes, which is unfortunate, because
they are very interesting thinkers. I can mostly speak to Thiel's views. I
will spell them out, if anyone is interested.

1\. Peter Thiel strongly values timing. This is not incompatible with the idea
of creating your own market.

2\. Thiel argues strongly against the ideas that a good invention sells
itself. He emphasizes, to the point of contrarianism, that sales is
underrated.

3\. Thiel believes that competing on quality and price only is a sucker's
game, competition. To get monopoly (the goal), you need to do something
fundamentally different than anyone else (in kind, not in efficiency). The
exception is if you do something 10x better than anyone else, it rolls back
around to constituting a difference in kind.

~~~
allenleein
That was my fault. Thank you for pointing out the mistake. Im working on it :)

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look_lookatme
I think the original video is very much worth watching given what's happening
in the world right now:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUhtHojSphk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUhtHojSphk)

In particular there is a moment where Thiel questions whether Silicon Valley
will be able to save western civilization the way California saved a lot of
down and out people during the depression era disapora:
[https://youtu.be/PUhtHojSphk?t=1682](https://youtu.be/PUhtHojSphk?t=1682)

In the coming economic, biological and climate crisis I guess we'll see how it
fares.

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m_a_g
If I remember correctly, in Zero to One, Thiel states that one of the strict
conditions for a startup to succeed is having great timing.

I think the article is not accurate or maybe the author didn't include Thiel's
opinion on timing for the sake argument.

~~~
allenleein
My mistake. I'm working on it. :) Thank you

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brador
Twitter was succesful in the US because cellphone messaging was expensive.
Twitter did not do well initially in parts of the world with free cellphone
messaging (Europe). That is the problem Twitter solved.

~~~
skrtskrt
I haven't heard this theory before - Twitter started off with SMS, so wouldn't
it increase your SMS usage?

Also in my experience by the time Twitter started, lots of people - especially
techie people that would have been early adopters - had unlimited texting
plans.

They definitely _didn 't_ have unlimited data plans by the time Twitter was
web-centric.

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zackmorris
After researching this a bit, it appears that Andreessen and Thiel actually
have similar ideologies, which might be described as libertarian. Even though
they are both very successful, I feel that focusing on them is a form of
framing that limits a broader discussion about how the distribution of seed
capital affects innovation.

Does anyone know of any VCs who might be considered advocates for social
justice?

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jeffrallen
Frankly, they are both assholes.

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RocketSyntax
Meh. Would prefer a summary of Zero to One.

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_red
FB vs Twitter: Two investors justify their investments.

~~~
fortydegrees
Both are on FB's board. Neither are on Twitter's.

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buboard
In retrospect, Thiel was, and is right. We are facing a global crisis because
we brushed away our most important problems and chose to profit from digital
cats and emojis. Time does not forgive those who lag behind, and we are now
facing a crisis similar to a global war. Science and tech has institutionally
been failing for decades, knows it 's been failing and has generally brushed
away those concerns. Our weapons are now ancient, containment is a tool from
the 1920s. (I know people are offended by this, i was hoping a global pandemic
would be a wake up call)

~~~
thundergolfer
Which global crisis you are referring to? It can’t be Climate Change because
that isn’t a technology problem it’s a political and economic problem. Is it
Covid-19?

~~~
api
I strongly disagree about climate change. It's nothing but a technology
problem. The people addressing it are people like Gates with his funding of
advanced nuclear and Musk with his driving of EVs, solar power, and grid scale
storage.

One of the major reasons we've failed at tackling climate change to date is
that we've been treating it as a political, economic, or ultimately _moral_
problem and trying to solve it by moralizing.

I call this approach "abstinence based environmentalism," making a direct
analogy to abstinence based sex-ed. It works about as well. Trying to shame
people into using less energy or pursuing less economic activity is going to
be about as successful as shaming teens into not having sex.

If we try to push abstinence based environmentalism really really hard by
legislating it and trying to force people to down-size, we'll get a populist
counter-reaction and we'll see the election of explicitly anti-
environmentalist candidates. That's worse than nothing. That's going backward.
We've already seen some of this.

We've been approaching environmental problems as moral and political issues
for decades and what do we have to show for it?

[https://www.sciencealert.com/images/2019-05/processed/017-ca...](https://www.sciencealert.com/images/2019-05/processed/017-carbon-
ppm-415-co2_1024.jpg)

Total, absolute failure.

To stop CO2 and methane emissions, replace fossil fuels. To stop STDs and
unwanted pregnancies, give teens contraceptive pills and rubbers.

~~~
petermcneeley
I agree with the thrust of your argument but its actually still totally a
social and economic problem and not a problem of technology. First covid19
demonstrates how much of education and work can take place from the home
without the need of rushhour style transport.

Second your examples of gates and musk are actually examples of the general
failure of governments and markets to use existing technologies. Nuclear
power, Hydro electric, ocean power, traditional solar ; all of these are
existing technologies that dont need innovation what they need is the economic
and social Will to construct. Musks EVs ; very expensive direct replacements
for existing vehicles to me indicates something very wrong in the approach to
solving climate change.

The problem is one of Coordination. The sclerosis of western society and our
focus on individual incentive prevents anything but the most marginal of
improvements.

A great example can be seen here in Ontario. Here the government subsidized
private individuals to put up their own solar on their homes. Electric prices
soared. The result is basically a wealth transfer from poor to rich with very
little gained. Again there is some similarity here to the Tesla EV. Not that
solar makes much sense in Canada but i am sure the government could have done
much better to have run this project itself.

~~~
buboard
home work and education _is_ technology. it might have not been build to save
the environment , but it could save it. None - zero - of the remote solutions
were advocated by politics, in fact management and politics is hostile to it
as has been attested in these forums many times

~~~
petermcneeley
Right but im in 100% in agreement with your statements. The "real" problems
are in the social -political -economic realm. NOT actually that we need
significant new technological developments. Thats why I disagree that it is a
" It's nothing but a technology problem."

