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Peter Thiel on the difference between the best founders and “professional CEOs” In his book Zero To One, which is approaching its 10-year anniversary, Thiel wrote: “We need founders. If anything, we should be more tolerant of founders who seem strange or extreme. We need unusual individuals to lead... companies beyond mere incrementalism.” And while he doesn’t believe there’s a simple magic formula for what a founder looks like, Thiel observes: “A lot of the great companies that have been built over the last two decades were founded by people where it was somehow deeply connected to their identity - their life’s project.” He contrasts this to Silicon Valley in the 1990s when lots of founders were replaced with professional CEOs. Thiel believes it made a big difference when it became more common for founders run the companies. He gives the example of a 22 year old Mark Zuckerberg turning down a billion dollar acquisition from Yahoo: “If you had a professional CEO, it would have just been: ‘I can’t believe they’re offering us a billion dollars. I’m going to try not to be too eager. We better take the money and run.’” Video Source: The Aspen Instituteshow more

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Watch the full @AspenInstitute interview with Peter Thiel here:

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Adam Gregory Goernvor 2 Jahren

Remember when Scully as professional CEO ran Apple into the ground? Then Jobs returned as Saviour Founder.

Profilbild von Felix Chin MD

Felix Chin MDvor 2 Jahren

same principles apply to researchers (vs professional researchers), except magnified 1000x given research’s intended role of exploring unknown search space (researchers by extension should be a little idiosyncratic)

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UX & Graphic Design Agency in Munichvor 2 Jahren

Translation: embrace your inner mad scientist. 🚀 #StayWeird

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OIIAvor 2 Jahren

Interesting, there's a chance for me yet then?

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James Marshvor 2 Jahren

Peter is fooling himself.

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Spektre | DeFivor 2 Jahren

👋

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K Rajuvor 2 Jahren

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Peter Thiel on the difference between the best founders and “professional CEOs” In his book Zero To One, Thiel wrote: “We need founders. If anything, we should be more tolerant of founders who seem strange or extreme. We need unusual individuals to lead companies beyond mere incrementalism.” And while he doesn’t believe there’s a simple magic formula for what a founder looks like, Thiel observes: “A lot of the great companies that have been built over the last two decades were founded by people where it was somehow deeply connected to their identity - their life’s project.” He contrasts this to Silicon Valley in the 1990s when lots of founders were replaced with professional CEOs. Thiel believes it made a big difference when it became more common for founders run the companies. He gives the example of a 22 year old Mark Zuckerberg turning down a billion dollar acquisition from Yahoo: “If you had a professional CEO, it would have just been: ‘I can’t believe they’re offering us a billion dollars. I’m going to try not to be too eager. We better take the money and run.’” Source: The Aspen Institute (Jun 2024)

Peter Thiel on the difference between the best founders and “professional CEOs” In his book Zero To One, Thiel wrote: “We need founders. If anything, we should be more tolerant of founders who seem strange or extreme. We need unusual individuals to lead companies beyond mere incrementalism.” And while he doesn’t believe there’s a simple magic formula for what a founder looks like, Thiel observes: “A lot of the great companies that have been built over the last two decades were founded by people where it was somehow deeply connected to their identity - their life’s project.” He contrasts this to Silicon Valley in the 1990s when lots of founders were replaced with professional CEOs. Thiel believes it made a big difference when it became more common for founders run the companies. He gives the example of a 22 year old Mark Zuckerberg turning down a billion dollar acquisition from Yahoo: “If you had a professional CEO, it would have just been: ‘I can’t believe they’re offering us a billion dollars. I’m going to try not to be too eager. We better take the money and run.’” Source: The Aspen Institute (Jun 2024)

Startup Archive

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“Peter Thiel lived out that PayPal experience where they had investors that were much more of that conservative attitude and didn’t trust the founders of the company to run the company. Founders Fund came about in 2005 with the purpose of empowering founders to run their companies forever. A lot of people ask for a long time, ‘What’s your favorite company in the portfolio?’ And I was biased, but I thought objectively, SpaceX. Apple was founder-led for a very long time. Amazon was still founder-led. And so there is this belief that the founders should run their companies because they have the moral authority and the vision to do that.” Scott Nolan

“Peter Thiel lived out that PayPal experience where they had investors that were much more of that conservative attitude and didn’t trust the founders of the company to run the company. Founders Fund came about in 2005 with the purpose of empowering founders to run their companies forever. A lot of people ask for a long time, ‘What’s your favorite company in the portfolio?’ And I was biased, but I thought objectively, SpaceX. Apple was founder-led for a very long time. Amazon was still founder-led. And so there is this belief that the founders should run their companies because they have the moral authority and the vision to do that.” Scott Nolan

Shawn Ryan

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Peter Thiel on why all trends are overrated and one-of-a-kind companies are underrated Peter Thiel is asked what students should study in college. He thinks this is similar to the question “what are future trends in technology?” “What I will say about trends in technology and areas of study is that they’re probably all overrated,” Thiel explains. “When you have something that can be reduced to a buzzword, it means that a lot of people are doing it and they’re somehow inadequately differentiated in that field.” On the other hand, Thiel believes that one-of-a-kind companies that don’t easily fit into an existing narrative or trend are underrated. He gives Airbnb as an example—any existing category would miss the uniqueness of the business. “Great companies always have this one-of-a-kind attribute,” Thiel observes. And he suspects that areas of study are similar: “If you’re in a big area of study, where everyone’s studying the same thing, you’re not adequately differentiating yourself from other people… I think people are spending too much time studying the things everybody else is studying, and they’re spending too little time studying more particular things that they’re really passionate about.” Video source: Northwestern Engineering (2014)

Peter Thiel on why all trends are overrated and one-of-a-kind companies are underrated Peter Thiel is asked what students should study in college. He thinks this is similar to the question “what are future trends in technology?” “What I will say about trends in technology and areas of study is that they’re probably all overrated,” Thiel explains. “When you have something that can be reduced to a buzzword, it means that a lot of people are doing it and they’re somehow inadequately differentiated in that field.” On the other hand, Thiel believes that one-of-a-kind companies that don’t easily fit into an existing narrative or trend are underrated. He gives Airbnb as an example—any existing category would miss the uniqueness of the business. “Great companies always have this one-of-a-kind attribute,” Thiel observes. And he suspects that areas of study are similar: “If you’re in a big area of study, where everyone’s studying the same thing, you’re not adequately differentiating yourself from other people… I think people are spending too much time studying the things everybody else is studying, and they’re spending too little time studying more particular things that they’re really passionate about.” Video source: Northwestern Engineering (2014)

Startup Archive

139,271 Aufrufe • vor 10 Monaten

Peter Thiel on what he would look for if he was joining a startup Wharton professor Adam Grant asks Peter Thiel what he would look for if he was joining an early-stage startup. Thiel gives a simple response: “Do you like the people? Do you think you could become good friends with these people? That’s such a critical part for getting these things to work.” He recalls interviewing with a law firm in New York early in his career and one partner telling him: “It’s a place where everybody hates everybody else, but we all make lots of money.” The partner viewed it as an illustration of how incredibly “professional” the firm was. But Thiel argues that we need more than just “professional” at work. Thiel elaborates more on this idea in his book Zero to One: “Why work with a group of people who don’t even like each other? Many seem to think it’s a sacrifice necessary for making money. But taking a merely professional view of the workplace, in which free agents check in and out on a transactional basis, is worse than cold: it’s not even rational. Since time is your most valuable asset, it’s odd to spend it working with people who don’t envision any long-term future together. If you can’t count durable relationships among the fruits of your time at work, you haven’t invested your time well—even in purely financial terms.” Video source: The Wharton School (2014)

Peter Thiel on what he would look for if he was joining a startup Wharton professor Adam Grant asks Peter Thiel what he would look for if he was joining an early-stage startup. Thiel gives a simple response: “Do you like the people? Do you think you could become good friends with these people? That’s such a critical part for getting these things to work.” He recalls interviewing with a law firm in New York early in his career and one partner telling him: “It’s a place where everybody hates everybody else, but we all make lots of money.” The partner viewed it as an illustration of how incredibly “professional” the firm was. But Thiel argues that we need more than just “professional” at work. Thiel elaborates more on this idea in his book Zero to One: “Why work with a group of people who don’t even like each other? Many seem to think it’s a sacrifice necessary for making money. But taking a merely professional view of the workplace, in which free agents check in and out on a transactional basis, is worse than cold: it’s not even rational. Since time is your most valuable asset, it’s odd to spend it working with people who don’t envision any long-term future together. If you can’t count durable relationships among the fruits of your time at work, you haven’t invested your time well—even in purely financial terms.” Video source: The Wharton School (2014)

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Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt: “The great founders are frugal” When Eric joined Google as CEO in 2001 — two years after the company had raised a $25 million Series A — he shared an office with four engineers. He even had to lend one of the founders his car when theirs broke down. He believes this frugality is common attribute of the best founders: “I can always tell when we’re dealing with a proper founder by how they are spending their money… Whenever I go to startups that have beautiful offices and really nice chairs, I cringe.” Eric continues: “The great founders are frugal. They understand that the money needs to be used precisely for certain areas. Many of the most successful founders begin with no salary at all… If you’re not prepared to live that, you don’t really understand what being a founder is like.” Video source: Startup Grind (2016)

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt: “The great founders are frugal” When Eric joined Google as CEO in 2001 — two years after the company had raised a $25 million Series A — he shared an office with four engineers. He even had to lend one of the founders his car when theirs broke down. He believes this frugality is common attribute of the best founders: “I can always tell when we’re dealing with a proper founder by how they are spending their money… Whenever I go to startups that have beautiful offices and really nice chairs, I cringe.” Eric continues: “The great founders are frugal. They understand that the money needs to be used precisely for certain areas. Many of the most successful founders begin with no salary at all… If you’re not prepared to live that, you don’t really understand what being a founder is like.” Video source: Startup Grind (2016)

Startup Archive

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Peter Thiel on why the best businesses never compete: "Most people believe that capitalism and competition are synonyms. I believe capitalism and competition are antonyms." His point is simple: "A capitalist is someone who's in the business of accumulating capital. A world of perfect competition is a world where all the profits are competed away." Peter explains that the most important distinction in business is one nobody talks about enough. "There are two kinds of companies in this world. There are companies that are competitive and there are companies that have monopolies." His go-to example of a bad business? Restaurants. "Opening a restaurant is super competitive and nobody ever makes any money doing it." His example of a great business: Google. "Google has had no competition in search since 2002 when it definitively distanced itself from Microsoft and Yahoo, and it's been making enormous profits for the dozen years or so ever since." So what should founders actually aim for? "If you're a one-of-a-kind company, a happy company that's doing something different, you are a monopoly. It is the goal of every founder, every entrepreneur—it should be their goal to try to build a monopoly business." True market power means never having to compete in the first place.

Peter Thiel on why the best businesses never compete: "Most people believe that capitalism and competition are synonyms. I believe capitalism and competition are antonyms." His point is simple: "A capitalist is someone who's in the business of accumulating capital. A world of perfect competition is a world where all the profits are competed away." Peter explains that the most important distinction in business is one nobody talks about enough. "There are two kinds of companies in this world. There are companies that are competitive and there are companies that have monopolies." His go-to example of a bad business? Restaurants. "Opening a restaurant is super competitive and nobody ever makes any money doing it." His example of a great business: Google. "Google has had no competition in search since 2002 when it definitively distanced itself from Microsoft and Yahoo, and it's been making enormous profits for the dozen years or so ever since." So what should founders actually aim for? "If you're a one-of-a-kind company, a happy company that's doing something different, you are a monopoly. It is the goal of every founder, every entrepreneur—it should be their goal to try to build a monopoly business." True market power means never having to compete in the first place.

Big Brain Business

73,938 Aufrufe • vor 6 Monaten

Evan Spiegel explains why he didn’t sell Snapchat to Mark Zuckerberg for $3 billion “A lot of people in the early days told us we should sell it,” Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel recalls of the time. He tells story from the early days of the company: “I remember joining a conference call with some of our lawyers and they were saying, ‘This thing is basically going to zero,’ ‘It’s just a fad.’… And I’m like, ‘Oh hey guys.’… They didn’t know I was there because I joined a minute or two early.” But it wasn’t just their lawyers. Everyone at the time thought that the big players in social media were going to put Snapchat out of business. Yet Evan and his co-founder Bobby Murphy ignored them. They even had so much faith in his vision for the company that they turned down a reported $3 billion dollar acquisition offer from Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. The founders were only 23 years old when Facebook reached out over email. Facebook told the young founders that they were working on a competitor called Poke and asked if they’d want to join Facebook’s growing social media portfolio after their acquisition of Instagram. But Evan and Bobby said no: “I wish I could say it was wisdom but I think Bobby and I just loved what we were doing. We loved what we were working on, and we believed in the future of it. Ultimately we were able to convince our investors too that our opportunity was much bigger over time.” Evan explains that him and his founder each taking $10 million of secondaries also played a big role: “[Our investors] did something very smart early on in a prior financing round. Bobby and I were each able to sell $10 million of stock… And that allowed us to just swing for the fences… There wasn’t that feeling of, ‘Oh no, I’m not going to be able to buy a house or have a family.’ We were like, ‘We each got $10 million bucks. Let’s go for it.’” Today Snap is valued at $13 billion. Video source: Steven Bartlett (2025)

Evan Spiegel explains why he didn’t sell Snapchat to Mark Zuckerberg for $3 billion “A lot of people in the early days told us we should sell it,” Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel recalls of the time. He tells story from the early days of the company: “I remember joining a conference call with some of our lawyers and they were saying, ‘This thing is basically going to zero,’ ‘It’s just a fad.’… And I’m like, ‘Oh hey guys.’… They didn’t know I was there because I joined a minute or two early.” But it wasn’t just their lawyers. Everyone at the time thought that the big players in social media were going to put Snapchat out of business. Yet Evan and his co-founder Bobby Murphy ignored them. They even had so much faith in his vision for the company that they turned down a reported $3 billion dollar acquisition offer from Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. The founders were only 23 years old when Facebook reached out over email. Facebook told the young founders that they were working on a competitor called Poke and asked if they’d want to join Facebook’s growing social media portfolio after their acquisition of Instagram. But Evan and Bobby said no: “I wish I could say it was wisdom but I think Bobby and I just loved what we were doing. We loved what we were working on, and we believed in the future of it. Ultimately we were able to convince our investors too that our opportunity was much bigger over time.” Evan explains that him and his founder each taking $10 million of secondaries also played a big role: “[Our investors] did something very smart early on in a prior financing round. Bobby and I were each able to sell $10 million of stock… And that allowed us to just swing for the fences… There wasn’t that feeling of, ‘Oh no, I’m not going to be able to buy a house or have a family.’ We were like, ‘We each got $10 million bucks. Let’s go for it.’” Today Snap is valued at $13 billion. Video source: Steven Bartlett (2025)

Startup Archive

38,309 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

We are thrilled to announce the launch of avra — a 7-week program designed specifically for post-Series A CEOs looking to scale their companies effectively. As most startup founders are first-time CEOs, the journey can be daunting, and resources are scarce. That’s why we created avra : to bridge that gap and provide structured, actionable insights from those who’ve been there. Each week, you’ll dive deep into essential topics like hiring and managing leaders, how to accelerate shipping velocity, and refine strategic planning. Every session is taught by experienced CEOs and operators from the world’s best companies. Since launching last year, we’ve run three cohorts, with 37 CEOs participating in the program. Don’t just take our word for it—hear from the avra founders directly!

We are thrilled to announce the launch of avra — a 7-week program designed specifically for post-Series A CEOs looking to scale their companies effectively. As most startup founders are first-time CEOs, the journey can be daunting, and resources are scarce. That’s why we created avra : to bridge that gap and provide structured, actionable insights from those who’ve been there. Each week, you’ll dive deep into essential topics like hiring and managing leaders, how to accelerate shipping velocity, and refine strategic planning. Every session is taught by experienced CEOs and operators from the world’s best companies. Since launching last year, we’ve run three cohorts, with 37 CEOs participating in the program. Don’t just take our word for it—hear from the avra founders directly!

Anu Hariharan

325,282 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr

Peter Thiel: Europe will never have massive tech companies because they fear success. "In Silicon Valley, there's this pornography of failure. You talk about all your failures, and this somehow means you're going to succeed." "In the social democratic European societies, it's acceptable to be moderately successful, it's not acceptable to be wildly successful. If you have a successful company that's starting to grow, it will get short-circuited, and you'll sell the company. You'll never get to an enormous company if you sell it along the way." "The single most important decision in the history of Facebook— summer of 2006. It was two years into the company. We got an acquisition offer for $1B from Yahoo to buy the company. There were three of us on the board— Mark Zuckerberg, myself, and another VC. We had a meeting to decide if we should take the $1B." "The two of us thought it was a lot of money, we should maybe take it. Mark started the board meeting— 'this is a pro forma thing, we're just going to talk about this for 10 minutes. Obviously we're not taking it.'" "Any super big tech company is one where you've been offered multiple times for people to buy it, and you've chosen never to sell it. You're not that afraid of success." "In Europe, the answer is to check out sooner rather than later and go back to the decade-long vacation that people are on in Europe."

Peter Thiel: Europe will never have massive tech companies because they fear success. "In Silicon Valley, there's this pornography of failure. You talk about all your failures, and this somehow means you're going to succeed." "In the social democratic European societies, it's acceptable to be moderately successful, it's not acceptable to be wildly successful. If you have a successful company that's starting to grow, it will get short-circuited, and you'll sell the company. You'll never get to an enormous company if you sell it along the way." "The single most important decision in the history of Facebook— summer of 2006. It was two years into the company. We got an acquisition offer for $1B from Yahoo to buy the company. There were three of us on the board— Mark Zuckerberg, myself, and another VC. We had a meeting to decide if we should take the $1B." "The two of us thought it was a lot of money, we should maybe take it. Mark started the board meeting— 'this is a pro forma thing, we're just going to talk about this for 10 minutes. Obviously we're not taking it.'" "Any super big tech company is one where you've been offered multiple times for people to buy it, and you've chosen never to sell it. You're not that afraid of success." "In Europe, the answer is to check out sooner rather than later and go back to the decade-long vacation that people are on in Europe."

Jawwwn

1,680,047 Aufrufe • vor 5 Monaten

Peter Thiel: There is no wisdom of crowds Thiel suggests that the antithesis of his book Zero To One is Malcolm Gladwell’s The Wisdom of Crowds. “If you have to give credit to Malcolm Gladwell, the way the argument actually works in the wisdom of crowds is if you have a crowd of people and they independently make a judgement, you can average it out and you’ll get to a pretty good idea.” The classic example is asking a group of people to independently guess how many marbles are in a bag—the average answer will be pretty good. “But the problem is that in most cases, the decisions don’t end up getting made individually.” Thiel explains. “People are influenced by one another. And when you have a crowd dynamic in which people are drawing conclusions because they’re looking toward one another, that is where the crowd is untruth.” Thiel believes imitation is a deep part of human nature: “Kids learn language by copying their parents. It’s how culture is transmitted in our society. But it’s also how very many things go wrong.” Thiel believes you need to go against the crowd if you want to accomplish something truly great. He points out that many of the most successful entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley seem to be suffering from a mild form of Aspergers. Video source: Saïd Business School (2015)

Peter Thiel: There is no wisdom of crowds Thiel suggests that the antithesis of his book Zero To One is Malcolm Gladwell’s The Wisdom of Crowds. “If you have to give credit to Malcolm Gladwell, the way the argument actually works in the wisdom of crowds is if you have a crowd of people and they independently make a judgement, you can average it out and you’ll get to a pretty good idea.” The classic example is asking a group of people to independently guess how many marbles are in a bag—the average answer will be pretty good. “But the problem is that in most cases, the decisions don’t end up getting made individually.” Thiel explains. “People are influenced by one another. And when you have a crowd dynamic in which people are drawing conclusions because they’re looking toward one another, that is where the crowd is untruth.” Thiel believes imitation is a deep part of human nature: “Kids learn language by copying their parents. It’s how culture is transmitted in our society. But it’s also how very many things go wrong.” Thiel believes you need to go against the crowd if you want to accomplish something truly great. He points out that many of the most successful entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley seem to be suffering from a mild form of Aspergers. Video source: Saïd Business School (2015)

Startup Archive

457,223 Aufrufe • vor 9 Monaten

Peter Thiel: There is no wisdom of crowds Thiel suggests that the antithesis of his book Zero To One is Malcolm Gladwell’s The Wisdom of Crowds. “If you have to give credit to Malcolm Gladwell, the way the argument actually works in the wisdom of crowds is if you have a crowd of people and they independently make a judgement, you can average it out and you’ll get to a pretty good idea.” The classic example is asking a group of people to independently guess how many marbles are in a bag—the average answer will be pretty good. “But the problem is that in most cases, the decisions don’t end up getting made individually.” Thiel explains. “People are influenced by one another. And when you have a crowd dynamic in which people are drawing conclusions because they’re looking toward one another, that is where the crowd is untruth.” Thiel believes imitation is a deep part of human nature: “Kids learn language by copying their parents. It’s how culture is transmitted in our society. But it’s also how very many things go wrong.” Thiel believes you need to go against the crowd if you want to accomplish something truly great. He points out that many of the most successful entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley seem to be suffering from a mild form of Aspergers. Source: University of Oxford (May 2015)

Peter Thiel: There is no wisdom of crowds Thiel suggests that the antithesis of his book Zero To One is Malcolm Gladwell’s The Wisdom of Crowds. “If you have to give credit to Malcolm Gladwell, the way the argument actually works in the wisdom of crowds is if you have a crowd of people and they independently make a judgement, you can average it out and you’ll get to a pretty good idea.” The classic example is asking a group of people to independently guess how many marbles are in a bag—the average answer will be pretty good. “But the problem is that in most cases, the decisions don’t end up getting made individually.” Thiel explains. “People are influenced by one another. And when you have a crowd dynamic in which people are drawing conclusions because they’re looking toward one another, that is where the crowd is untruth.” Thiel believes imitation is a deep part of human nature: “Kids learn language by copying their parents. It’s how culture is transmitted in our society. But it’s also how very many things go wrong.” Thiel believes you need to go against the crowd if you want to accomplish something truly great. He points out that many of the most successful entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley seem to be suffering from a mild form of Aspergers. Source: University of Oxford (May 2015)

Startup Archive

46,637 Aufrufe • vor 1 Monat

Brian Chesky: "People are born good founders. It's innate. You don't have to learn how to be good founder. No one is born a good CEO. The problem is we founders were never really prepared to be great CEOs. We were taught to learn by doing and that's great for a founder. It is not good as a CEO. I was naturally good founder, I think I was a very good early stage CEO. The moment I had to have an executive team, I really struggled to make the shift from a founder to CEO. In the 2010s, I do not think I was a great CEO. We paid the price for my learning curve. And then the pandemic happened. We had a near death experience and I said screw all the rumination it's do or die. And I learned how to do the job."

Brian Chesky: "People are born good founders. It's innate. You don't have to learn how to be good founder. No one is born a good CEO. The problem is we founders were never really prepared to be great CEOs. We were taught to learn by doing and that's great for a founder. It is not good as a CEO. I was naturally good founder, I think I was a very good early stage CEO. The moment I had to have an executive team, I really struggled to make the shift from a founder to CEO. In the 2010s, I do not think I was a great CEO. We paid the price for my learning curve. And then the pandemic happened. We had a near death experience and I said screw all the rumination it's do or die. And I learned how to do the job."

Patrick OShaughnessy

152,121 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten

Peter Thiel: "Competition is for losers" "Competition is for losers, which got people's attention, because we normally believe the opposite. We believe that the losers are the people who don't compete intensely enough. You're a loser if you're not competitive. But what if you're a loser because you're too obsessed with competing? If you're too focused on competing, maybe you're losing sight of what's really important." Thiel explains the distinction most people miss: "The most important distinction in business that people don't talk about enough is that there are two kinds of companies in this world. There are companies that are competitive, and there are companies that have monopolies. If you're a one-of-a-kind company, a happy company that's doing something different, you are a monopoly. It is the goal of every founder, every entrepreneur, it should be their goal to try to build a monopoly business." He frames this as an unconventional truth: "Most people believe that capitalism and competition are synonyms. I believe capitalism and competition are antonyms. A capitalist is someone who's in the business of accumulating capital. A world of perfect competition is a world where all the profits are competed away."

Peter Thiel: "Competition is for losers" "Competition is for losers, which got people's attention, because we normally believe the opposite. We believe that the losers are the people who don't compete intensely enough. You're a loser if you're not competitive. But what if you're a loser because you're too obsessed with competing? If you're too focused on competing, maybe you're losing sight of what's really important." Thiel explains the distinction most people miss: "The most important distinction in business that people don't talk about enough is that there are two kinds of companies in this world. There are companies that are competitive, and there are companies that have monopolies. If you're a one-of-a-kind company, a happy company that's doing something different, you are a monopoly. It is the goal of every founder, every entrepreneur, it should be their goal to try to build a monopoly business." He frames this as an unconventional truth: "Most people believe that capitalism and competition are synonyms. I believe capitalism and competition are antonyms. A capitalist is someone who's in the business of accumulating capital. A world of perfect competition is a world where all the profits are competed away."

Jaynit

55,180 Aufrufe • vor 3 Monaten

Peter Thiel on what most founders don’t understand about differentiation “I think you want to have very big differences inside the team, and then from the outside, you want to be seen as very different from the rest of the world.” For example, SpacEx’s mission is to go to Mars: “Everybody at the company thinks: we’re the only place in the world where people are going to go to Mars. And that one idea separates it very sharply from the rest of the world.” And then within a company, you want the roles to be as differentiated as possible. One of the challenges in an early stage startup is that the roles tend to fluctuate a lot. Thiel believes this is one of the ways in which conflicts tend to arise. “If you were a sociopathic boss who just wanted to create conflicts amongst your employees for no reason at all, the formula for creating conflicts is to tell two people to do the exact same thing.” To summarize his point, Thiel concludes: “You want to have roles differentiated sharply differentiated within companies. And you want to have the mission of the company differentiated sharply from the rest of the world.” Video source: Saïd Business School (2015)

Peter Thiel on what most founders don’t understand about differentiation “I think you want to have very big differences inside the team, and then from the outside, you want to be seen as very different from the rest of the world.” For example, SpacEx’s mission is to go to Mars: “Everybody at the company thinks: we’re the only place in the world where people are going to go to Mars. And that one idea separates it very sharply from the rest of the world.” And then within a company, you want the roles to be as differentiated as possible. One of the challenges in an early stage startup is that the roles tend to fluctuate a lot. Thiel believes this is one of the ways in which conflicts tend to arise. “If you were a sociopathic boss who just wanted to create conflicts amongst your employees for no reason at all, the formula for creating conflicts is to tell two people to do the exact same thing.” To summarize his point, Thiel concludes: “You want to have roles differentiated sharply differentiated within companies. And you want to have the mission of the company differentiated sharply from the rest of the world.” Video source: Saïd Business School (2015)

Startup Archive

43,752 Aufrufe • vor 7 Monaten

Peter Thiel on what most founders don’t understand about differentiation “I think you want to have very big differences inside the team, and then from the outside, you want to be seen as very different from the rest of the world.” For example, SpacEx’s mission is to go to Mars: “Everybody at the company thinks: we’re the only place in the world where people are going to go to Mars. And that one idea separates it very sharply from the rest of the world.” And then within a company, you want the roles to be as differentiated as possible. One of the challenges in an early stage startup is that the roles tend to fluctuate a lot. Thiel believes this is one of the ways in which conflicts tend to arise. “If you were a sociopathic boss who just wanted to create conflicts amongst your employees for no reason at all, the formula for creating conflicts is to tell two people to do the exact same thing.” To summarize his point, Thiel concludes: “You want to have roles differentiated sharply differentiated within companies. And you want to have the mission of the company differentiated sharply from the rest of the world.” Source: Saïd Business School (May 2015)

Peter Thiel on what most founders don’t understand about differentiation “I think you want to have very big differences inside the team, and then from the outside, you want to be seen as very different from the rest of the world.” For example, SpacEx’s mission is to go to Mars: “Everybody at the company thinks: we’re the only place in the world where people are going to go to Mars. And that one idea separates it very sharply from the rest of the world.” And then within a company, you want the roles to be as differentiated as possible. One of the challenges in an early stage startup is that the roles tend to fluctuate a lot. Thiel believes this is one of the ways in which conflicts tend to arise. “If you were a sociopathic boss who just wanted to create conflicts amongst your employees for no reason at all, the formula for creating conflicts is to tell two people to do the exact same thing.” To summarize his point, Thiel concludes: “You want to have roles differentiated sharply differentiated within companies. And you want to have the mission of the company differentiated sharply from the rest of the world.” Source: Saïd Business School (May 2015)

Startup Archive

25,454 Aufrufe • vor 11 Tagen

Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel offers a contrarian view on mastery: the best founders aren't specialists, they're polymaths who understand how everything connects. After 14 years on the Facebook board, Thiel has watched Mark Zuckerberg up close. And he's noticed something that cuts against conventional wisdom about what it takes to build something great. "I think that one kind of perspective for a lot of the world-class entrepreneurs is they're not specialists. They're something close to polymaths." Thiel uses Zuckerberg as his prime example: "If you have a conversation with Mark Zuckerberg, he'd be able to speak with a surprising amount of understanding about a lot of things. He could talk about the details of the Facebook product, the psychology of social media, the way the culture is shifting, the management of the company, and how this fits into the bigger history of technology." This stands in stark contrast to how academia frames expertise: "Whereas the sort of academic view is often that you're like a narrow expert on one thing and that's what you do and what it is about. It's much more this polymath-like intellect who understands all these different things." Peter Thiel reflects on what this has looked like at the board level: "The kinds of board conversations we've had over the last 13, 14 years, it's just been this crazy range." The takeaway: world-class founders don't just go deep in one area. They think across product, psychology, culture, management, and technology history, and they see how it all connects.

Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel offers a contrarian view on mastery: the best founders aren't specialists, they're polymaths who understand how everything connects. After 14 years on the Facebook board, Thiel has watched Mark Zuckerberg up close. And he's noticed something that cuts against conventional wisdom about what it takes to build something great. "I think that one kind of perspective for a lot of the world-class entrepreneurs is they're not specialists. They're something close to polymaths." Thiel uses Zuckerberg as his prime example: "If you have a conversation with Mark Zuckerberg, he'd be able to speak with a surprising amount of understanding about a lot of things. He could talk about the details of the Facebook product, the psychology of social media, the way the culture is shifting, the management of the company, and how this fits into the bigger history of technology." This stands in stark contrast to how academia frames expertise: "Whereas the sort of academic view is often that you're like a narrow expert on one thing and that's what you do and what it is about. It's much more this polymath-like intellect who understands all these different things." Peter Thiel reflects on what this has looked like at the board level: "The kinds of board conversations we've had over the last 13, 14 years, it's just been this crazy range." The takeaway: world-class founders don't just go deep in one area. They think across product, psychology, culture, management, and technology history, and they see how it all connects.

Big Brain Business

69,402 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten

Legendary Sequoia Capital partner, Doug Leone, shares an unexpected take on what makes a great entrepreneur: "If you're desperate it's a great asset. If you have too many choices in life it clouds your thinking. When you only have one way to go and that's forward, it's very easy. You just go. Failure truly is not an option." That kind of focus often comes from founders who haven't followed conventional paths, people who have done "quirky things" and taken risks. Doug also reveals a "little secret" for spotting these founders: "We look for people that solve a problem that they have. They don't know it, we don't know it, but they're the proxy for the next 20 million users." He points to three examples: — The Zappos founders couldn't find a pair of shoes — Jan of WhatsApp needed private, low-cost messaging — The Yahoo founders couldn't find anything on the internet "If we see that, that's a little tell for us that we may be on to something because we may find our first beta site, the founder, for the next generation." The best founders are fueled by desperation, building what they wish existed — and that's exactly what keeps them going when everyone else quits.

Legendary Sequoia Capital partner, Doug Leone, shares an unexpected take on what makes a great entrepreneur: "If you're desperate it's a great asset. If you have too many choices in life it clouds your thinking. When you only have one way to go and that's forward, it's very easy. You just go. Failure truly is not an option." That kind of focus often comes from founders who haven't followed conventional paths, people who have done "quirky things" and taken risks. Doug also reveals a "little secret" for spotting these founders: "We look for people that solve a problem that they have. They don't know it, we don't know it, but they're the proxy for the next 20 million users." He points to three examples: — The Zappos founders couldn't find a pair of shoes — Jan of WhatsApp needed private, low-cost messaging — The Yahoo founders couldn't find anything on the internet "If we see that, that's a little tell for us that we may be on to something because we may find our first beta site, the founder, for the next generation." The best founders are fueled by desperation, building what they wish existed — and that's exactly what keeps them going when everyone else quits.

Big Brain Business

67,133 Aufrufe • vor 6 Monaten

Keith Rabois: “I tell founders not to worry about runway. Worry about lift.” “If you think about lift in a plane context, a company is only valuable if you achieve lift. Runway is a tactic for achieving lift, and you may need to extend the runway so that you have more time to get lift. But unless you’re actually achieving lift with that extra time, it doesn’t help you.” Keith continues: “I hate when a founder is like, ‘I want to raise this much money because it gives me two years runway.’… That is a stupid way to think about your fundraising.” Instead, founders should ask themselves what they need to achieve to achieve lift, and then work backwards from that. When Keith invests at Khosla Ventures and Founders Fund, they write internal memos about the three key risks to the company. Usually you can’t achieve all three in one financing, so founders should be asking themselves, What’s the most important inflection? And then structure their financing to achieve that. Keith advises founders that it’s ok to let their runway go very low if they feel like they’re approaching lift: “A lot of founders get very bad advice like ‘Oh, you need to have this much runway or you won’t be able to raise money from strength.’ That’s nonsense. If you have traction - if you hit a viral coefficient of 1 with three months of runway - almost every VC on the planet knows how to invest in that company, and it will not be a problem.” Video source: Khosla Ventures (2024)

Keith Rabois: “I tell founders not to worry about runway. Worry about lift.” “If you think about lift in a plane context, a company is only valuable if you achieve lift. Runway is a tactic for achieving lift, and you may need to extend the runway so that you have more time to get lift. But unless you’re actually achieving lift with that extra time, it doesn’t help you.” Keith continues: “I hate when a founder is like, ‘I want to raise this much money because it gives me two years runway.’… That is a stupid way to think about your fundraising.” Instead, founders should ask themselves what they need to achieve to achieve lift, and then work backwards from that. When Keith invests at Khosla Ventures and Founders Fund, they write internal memos about the three key risks to the company. Usually you can’t achieve all three in one financing, so founders should be asking themselves, What’s the most important inflection? And then structure their financing to achieve that. Keith advises founders that it’s ok to let their runway go very low if they feel like they’re approaching lift: “A lot of founders get very bad advice like ‘Oh, you need to have this much runway or you won’t be able to raise money from strength.’ That’s nonsense. If you have traction - if you hit a viral coefficient of 1 with three months of runway - almost every VC on the planet knows how to invest in that company, and it will not be a problem.” Video source: Khosla Ventures (2024)

Startup Archive

256,008 Aufrufe • vor 9 Monaten

Eric Schmidt: The great founders are frugal When Eric joined Google as CEO in 2001—two years after securing a $25 million Series A—he shared an office with four engineers. He even had to lend one of the founders his car when theirs broke down. In the clip below he explains why this mentality is important: “I can always tell when we’re dealing with a proper founder by how they are spending their money… Whenever I go to startups that have beautiful offices and really nice chairs, I cringe.” He continues: “The great founders are frugal. They understand that the money needs to be used precisely for certain areas. Many of the most successful founders begin with no salary at all… If you’re not prepared to live that, you don’t really understand what being a founder is like.” Source: Startup Grind

Eric Schmidt: The great founders are frugal When Eric joined Google as CEO in 2001—two years after securing a $25 million Series A—he shared an office with four engineers. He even had to lend one of the founders his car when theirs broke down. In the clip below he explains why this mentality is important: “I can always tell when we’re dealing with a proper founder by how they are spending their money… Whenever I go to startups that have beautiful offices and really nice chairs, I cringe.” He continues: “The great founders are frugal. They understand that the money needs to be used precisely for certain areas. Many of the most successful founders begin with no salary at all… If you’re not prepared to live that, you don’t really understand what being a founder is like.” Source: Startup Grind

Startup Archive

68,501 Aufrufe • vor 2 Jahren