Peter Thiel
Peter Thiel
Peter Andreas Thielis a German-American entrepreneur, venture capitalist and hedge fund manager. Thiel co-founded PayPal with Max Levchin and Elon Musk and served as its CEO. He also co-founded Palantir, of which he is chairman. He was the first outside investor in Facebook, the popular social-networking site, with a 10.2% stake acquired in 2004 for $500,000, and sits on the company's board of directors...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth11 October 1967
CountryUnited States of America
I think competition can make people stronger at whatever it is they're competing on. If we're competing in some athletic event for competitive swimmers, really intensely competing, it's likely that both of us will become better, but it's also quite possible we'll lose sight of what's truly valuable.
People are spending way too much time thinking about climate change, way too little thinking about AI.
People always say you should live your life as if it were your last day. I think you should live your life as though it will go on for ever; that every day is so good that you don't want it to end.
I suspect Obama did not know he was recording Angela Merkel's cell phones.
I suspect if people live a lot longer they would be retired for a somewhat longer period of time. Just the financial planning takes on a very different character.
I think it's a problem that we don't have more companies like Facebook. It shouldn't be the only company that's doing this well.
I always find myself very distrustful of intense crowd phenomena, and I think those are things that we should always try to question, especially critically.
My only claim is that not all talented people should go to college and not all talented people should do the exact same thing.
I had a good experience in college, but I don't think interdisciplinary education is something that's stressed very much at all. It's generally considered to be something of a bad idea.
The millennial generation in the US is the first that has reduced expectations from those of their parents. And I think there is something decadent and declinist about that.
Investors are always biased to invest in things they themselves understand. So venture capitalists like Uber because they like driving in black town cars. They don't like Airbnb because they like staying in five-star hotels, not sleeping on people's couches.
I'm very pro-science and pro-technology; I believe that these have been key drivers of progress in the world in the last centuries.
If the whole U.S. was like Silicon Valley, we'd be in good shape. But now, the entire U.S. is not driven by technology, is not driven by innovation.
If you have a business idea that's extremely easy to copy, that can often become something of a challenge or problem.