Peter Thiel Explains His Startup Philosophy
July 21, 2014, 7:39 pm
In this SXSW presentation, Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shares in detail his philosophy on start-up businesses.
Quick Bio on Peter Thiel
A former philosophy major at Stanford University, Peter Thiel's Wikipedia page reads like a litany of Silicon Valley home runs. A co-founder of Paypal and Palantir Technologies, as well as a hedge fund and venture capital fund, Peter Thiel is also known as the first outside investor in Facebook -- an investment that turned $500K into over $1B.
Peter Thiel's Philosophy on Start-ups
Peter Thiel's over-arching thesis is that success involves a great deal of determinism, which is active and seeking, as opposed to indeterminism, which is passive and waiting. This is why the speech he gives in the South by Southwest video -- above -- is entitled, 'You are not a lottery ticket.'
Moreover, he says determinism is best represented by the analysis techniques of calculus, while indeterminism is a basic assumption of statistical analysis.
For Thiel, the notion of determinism is one facet of a larger framework for how to view start-ups and their founders. Also key to his philosophy are concepts of:
- Monopoly vs. competition
- Break-through seeking vs. incrementalism
- Technology vs. gloablization
- and biggest of all, the concept of secrets
Learn More About This
For a detailed exploration of these ideas, check out the following Thirsty Finance lessons on Peter Thiel's conceptual framework:
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