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My only claim is that not all talented people should go to college and not all talented people should do the exact same thing.
Peter Thiel -
How to teach people to do what hasn't been done is a great riddle.
Peter Thiel
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From my perspective, I think the question of how we build a better future is an extremely important overarching question, and I think it's become obscured from us because we no longer think it's possible to have a meaningful conversation about the future.
Peter Thiel -
Had the people who started Facebook decided to stay at Harvard, they would not have been able to build the company, and by the time they graduated in 2006, that window probably would have come and gone.
Peter Thiel -
People don't want to believe that technology is broken. Pharmaceuticals, robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology - all these areas where the progress has been a lot more limited than people think. And the question is why.
Peter Thiel -
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.
Peter Thiel -
Wall Street is always too biased toward short-term profitability and biased against long-term growth.
Peter Thiel -
You become a great writer by writing.
Peter Thiel
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'Perfect competition' is considered both the ideal and the default state in Economics 101. So-called perfectly competitive markets achieve equilibrium when producer supply meets consumer demand.
Peter Thiel -
One of my first investments was $100,000 in a Web-based calendar startup - and I lost every dollar.
Peter Thiel -
The optimism that many felt in the 1960s over labour-saving technology is giving way to a fearful question: 'Will your labour be good for anything in the future? Or will you be replaced by a machine?'
Peter Thiel -
I think people in Europe are generally pessimistic about the future. They have low expectations; they're not working hard to change things. When you're a slacker with a pessimistic view of the future, you're likely to meet those expectations.
Peter Thiel -
The next Bill Gates will not start an operating system. The next Larry Page won't start a search engine. The next Mark Zuckerberg won't start a social network company. If you are copying these people, you are not learning from them.
Peter Thiel -
When I was starting out, I followed along the path that seemed to be marked out for me - from high school to college to law school to professional life.
Peter Thiel
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There is a sort of genre of optimistic science fiction that I like, and I don't think there is enough of. One of my favourites is a short story by Arthur C. Clarke, 'The City and the Stars.' It's set in this far future on Earth in this somewhat static society and trying to break out.
Peter Thiel -
The first question we would ask if aliens landed on this planet is not, 'What does this mean for the economy or jobs?' It would be, 'Are they friendly or unfriendly?'
Peter Thiel -
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.
Peter Thiel -
What is it about our society where anyone who does not have Asperger's gets talked out of their heterodox ideas?
Peter Thiel -
I would not describe myself as a super early adopter of consumer technology.
Peter Thiel -
Great things happen only once.
Peter Thiel
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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.
Peter Thiel -
I believe we are in a world where innovation in stuff was outlawed. It was basically outlawed in the last 40 years - part of it was environmentalism, part of it was risk aversion.
Peter Thiel -
Whenever I talk to people who founded a company, I often like to ask the prehistory questions 'When did you meet? How long have you been working before you started the company?' A bad answer is, 'We met at a networking event a week ago, and we started a company because we both want to be entrepreneurs.'
Peter Thiel -
I don't think success is complicated; if you do something that works, then it's a success.
Peter Thiel