
Peter Thiel on what works at work (2014) - brianchu
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2014/10/10/peter-thiel-on-what-works-at-work/
======
jroseattle
Something I found _very_ interesting was Peter's comment: "You try to hire
people you could become friends with." I contrast this with Zuckerberg's
approach to only hiring people that he would work for
([http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-
leadership/wp/2015/03...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-
leadership/wp/2015/03/05/mark-zuckerbergs-hiring-secret/)).

It's probably not fair to put these side-by-side due to context, but Peter's
approach resonates with me now. Here's how I reconcile this: Peter's "friends"
concept is about the long-term effect on yourself (and your team around you).
Mark's "work-for" concept is about putting the very best people around you to
build and operate a company. They could certainly co-exist, depending on your
personality.

Mark's approach (for me) makes great sense on paper, but Peter's approach
comes with the value of been-there-done-that. Both have their place, but over
the long haul, I can really appreciate what Peter is talking about.

~~~
kens
"Try to hire people you could become friends with" seems like a really bad
idea from the discrimination point of view, since people are most likely to
view someone of the same race, age, and gender as a potential friend.

~~~
wiggumz
"You try to hire people you could become friends with" is a profoundly stupid
maxim.

People who come from conservative and religious societies will always be
pressured by friends to not make new friends who are of different ethnicities.

Thiel is basically ensuring each company Will become a little Island of
segregation and this is what I have seen in the bay area: companies that are
90% Indian, 90% Chinese, or 90% white guys.

~~~
feybay
I come from a conservative background and I've never been discouraged from
hanging out with different ethnicities and cultures. We are not the strawmen
you apparently think we are.

~~~
sambull
Conversely when a few of my friends family found out I was an atheist they
were no longer allowed to associate with me. A select few tried to convert me,
others acted outright vitriolic towards me. This was in a major metro in CA.
Romantic relationships have also ended in the past when family members
couldn't get over my lack of faith.

------
jeffreyrogers
> They’ve done studies at Harvard Business School where they’ve found that the
> largest cohort always went into the wrong field. So in 1989, they all went
> to work for Michael Milken, a year or two before he went to jail. They were
> never interested in Silicon Valley except for 1999, 2000.

They're interested in Silicon Valley now. Here's an actual conversation I had
recently with a business school student (not verbatim obviously, but accurate
as far as content):

Me: What are you doing after you graduate from HBS this spring?

MBA: I want to do startups.

Me: Oh cool, do you know which one you're going to work for?

MBA: Oh no, I want to _start_ a startup.

Me: Oh okay, what's it going to do?

MBA: Don't know yet!

Me: Oh...

~~~
skrebbel
What's wrong with that? IMO wanting to be an entrepreneur is one of the best
reasons to start a company :)

~~~
dataker
The problem comes when MBAs, generally without technical background, build
companies without real value and expand an already existing bubble.

~~~
Xcelerate
I don't think I would join a startup that wasn't founded by people with _some_
kind of technical degree.

~~~
k__
Same here. But it seems to be a thing.

Best email I got from a start-up that wanted to hire me went something like
this: "We are a team of 5 MBAs with an idea and need you to be our employee #1
to build it!"

I mean 5 founders seems rather excessive to me but all of them MBAs and the
only technical person will be an employee and not a co founder.

~~~
foobarian
Maybe it's not such a bad idea. Someone has to do the no-fun work of sales,
promotion, taxes, etc., might be nice to have a bunch of MBAs around to do
that. Could also ask for 40% equity or so.

------
ignoramous
The interview is excellent, and has great nuggets of wisdom. The one that
particularly stood out was--

"People always say you should live every day as though it's your last. I sort
of have taken the opposite tack, where I think you should live every day as
though it's going to go on forever. You should treat people like you're going
to see them again in the future. You should start working on projects that may
take a long time. And so I want to live every day as though it's going to go
on forever." [0]

The one I couldn't agree with (and one that features in his book Zero to One)
was about 'Competition is for loosers' I find it ironic that he brings up
example of Google and the monopoly it holds over the market... but wasn't
Google entering the search market as a competition to multiple other internet
firms before they leap-frogged them with all the talent they gobbled up from
DEC?

I like the hypothesis about how there is always more than one entity (or a
person) that's trying to do invent something almost at the same time-- theory
of Relativity [1], the airplane[2], the light blub [3]... and how each of them
were competing against time as much as each others to be the first to achieve
the breakthrough.

[0] [http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/218217-work-for-a-better-
lif...](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/218217-work-for-a-better-life-as-if-
you-live-forever)

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_priority_dispute](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_priority_dispute)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_flying_machines](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_flying_machines)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb#Histor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb#History)

~~~
dantheman
The competition is for losers, in my understanding is saying don't enter a
competitive market where you're not going to change it. For example, don't
start a restaurant or a store -- unless you're going to be extremely
different.

~~~
jeffdavis
"Competition is for losers" seems like pretty weak reasoning to me. As far as
I can tell, it goes something like:

Success is not random. Therefore, if you are successful, there is something
different about you. Therefore, you are a monopolist. Therefore, competition
can't make you successful.

But that's not very helpful. Every business on the planet can claim some kind
of differentiation -- maybe their supply chain is more efficient, or their
company structure is superior, or their sales channels are smarter, or...

More differentiation might be "better" in some sense, but differentiation is
often decided after the fact. It wasn't obvious that Google was differentiated
until they took over the market.

~~~
jblow
That is not remotely the whole argument. The argument is really about the fact
that competition ultimately drives profit margin to zero. See his other
writings for details.

------
jasode
>Peter Thiel is often described in techno-hyphenated words: ... Techno-
utopian.

I think the journalist got that characterization wrong.

Based on PT's writings and interviews[1], he's not a techno-utopian. My
cursory google searches doesn't show that others call him that either. Techno-
utopians would be people like Ray Kurzweil, Kevin Kelly, and Marc Andreessen.
And possibly Elon Musk as well.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yztBoNQRYo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yztBoNQRYo)

~~~
jseliger
I wouldn't even call them tech-utopians. I would call them people who do know
that a) the world can be made a better place but that b) for that to happen
people must make it happen. I can't speak for any of the three but I don't
think any of them are utopians; understanding that progress can be made isn't
the same as utopianism.

Journalists seem to like phrases like "techno-utopian" in order to make them
sound more like the other and like a different species than their readers.

~~~
jasode
>I can't speak for any of the three but I don't think any of them are
utopians;

Well, in the context of media awareness and _public perception_ , it's not if
they truly __are__ utopians insomuch as _other journalists and pundits_ call
them that. Yes, RK, KK, MA, and others like Tim O'Reilly and Dean Kamen may
prefer to call themselves the blander title of "techno-optimists" or "tech-
progressives". If the outsiders like journalists choose to exaggerate
"optimists" to "utopians" for dramatic effect, it sort of goes with the
territory of being in the public eye. (Like Michael Jackson the "king of pop",
or 1970s babies the "X Generation". The subjects of those labels didn't give
journalists permission to call them that.)

The other side of techno-utopians would be tech-cautious writers like Tom
Standage (Economist editor) and Evgeny Morozov.

In terms of how public figures are viewed, I still don't think Peter Thiel is
in the same category as the other people I mentioned.

------
bsbechtel
>>A lot of business books are these pseudo-scientific books that say, “These
are the five steps to follow and you will make a lot of money.” But if you
have no formulas, you will be open to some new possibilities, some new ideas.

This is the beauty of capitalism...there is no formula for success, which
means no one can monopolize or control that formula, and everyone has a shot
:)

~~~
matt4077
Some say "owning the means of production" is such a formula.

There's certainly a lot of opportunity in technology right now, but capitalism
doesn't guarantee such a state. The net neutrality debate is very explicitly
about keeping the market open to newcomers.

~~~
ignoramous
The software field is very picky in what it thinks is right... for instance,
iron grip of Apple over the entire iOS eco-system is fine with most developers
who'd continue to build on their platform, whilst any such move by a company
that isn't really in the tech scene as much (like the ISPs) is scrutinized to
hell and back.

~~~
s73v3r
One has a choice on whether to use Apple or not. In the US, at least, one
rarely has choice in their ISP, especially if they want something with any
kind of speed. Hence, them trying to exert an iron grip over what people are
allowed to access is far more damning.

------
dataker
>And I think it’s interesting to explore how unusual that is relative to many
other areas of technology, because there are so many innovations that were
good for society but the people who came up with them ended up with very
little.

Okay, co-founders sometimes end up with a fair amount money. However, early
employees that actually built the company are often forgotten and given a
relatively small sum of money. Not sure if SV really changed that.

~~~
ryanSrich
If you're an employee hoping to make it rich by working on someone else's
startup you're doing it wrong. Work for someone else because you need steady
pay. Work for someone else because you appreciate what they're doing.

If you want to make a lot of money you need to take risks. Start your own
startup. Go 4+ years without a salary. The co founders might not be the ones
actually building the product but they're the ones taking the risk. They're
the ones not sleeping at night. Trust me. It's a far better gig to just get
paid as an employee than spend years on a startup that eventually fails. If
Silicon Valley has done anything it's give young people the false impression
that starting a startup is a way to get rich.

Well...it is. In the same way that playing the lottery is a way to get rich.
One is much easier than the other.

~~~
s73v3r
Why are we rewarding someone who's "taking a risk" rather than the people who
are actually doing the work?

~~~
bhayden
It's not like the people doing the work are doing it for free. They're not
sacrificing much. The people taking the risks are the ones sacrificing and
enabling the creation of something, so they're the ones who gain from it.

~~~
s73v3r
But what, exactly, are they enabling? What couldn't the people doing the
actual work do without them?

------
crimsonalucard
Instead of living everyday as if it was your last or as if it was going to go
forever, how about living everyday as if you're going to die at around 80-85?

~~~
magnifyingglass
It really depends for people. You can keep track of all your thoughts and
ideas meticulously, to ensure that none of them are a quantitative
exaggeration or minimization of a linguistic translation of your present
perceptions of the objective state of 'things'. But if you do that long
enough, it is very hard to have an imagination, and you also can easily squash
desire and fear this way as well. Dreams may also come out weird, and
mathematical, logical, and computational terminology may seem to express
multiple meanings about your conscious awareness (implicit metaphor - because
logic + truth = ?, which gets very weird when you describe emotions or
familial/friendly relations).

You can live assuming everything everyone tells you is correct, and you can
assume this collectively forms your information sphere and consequently, your
image of the world, and even then project that image onto something you call
'reality'. But it's a bubble. People change those bubbles because even though
everything in reality tells them that they can not change the bubble, they
know that it's still a bubble that you have to be convinced into in the first
place.

The map is not the territory. -Alfred Korzybski

------
dsaw
> "There are all these things that you never know whether they’re features or
> bugs—in a company or organization, or even in a personal trait."

Very true, and one can defend either side of it as per the situation.

------
dhbradshaw
"Always prioritize the substance of what you're doing. Don't get caught up in
the status, the prestige games. They're endlessly dazzling, and they're always
endlessly disappointing."

------
blake_himself
That point about employees not having friends at work being at risk is true in
my case - if I don't have friends where I work I don't feel at home, and am
indeed more likely to leave. Which is a force for anti-diversity, since I only
rarely make friends with Asians (of either sort). And I'd bet that this is the
rule, not the exception.

------
fogleman
> Q. Some people outside Silicon Valley see it as a place that is not really
> in touch with the rest of the country. Does that ring true to you in any
> way?

> A. There is a big disconnect, because you have this sense of stagnation and
> slow growth in many other places, and you have this incredible boom in
> Silicon Valley.

This makes me think he doesn't get it...

