Firms in a competitive industry who sell a commodity product cannot turn a profit. But companies who have a monopoly can set their own prices since they offer an in-demand product that cannot be replicated. Monopoly firms are big fish in a small pond.

Sacrifice is a social event. Without sacrifice, human beings wouldn’t have a culture.

The most talented people follow the same narrow tracks. People are afraid to dream big or stand out. Without a positive vision for their future, these young Americans are stuck playing vicious, zero-sum status games. Instead of constructing our own desires, they mirror the goals of people around them. Patrick Collison, the CEO of Stripe, shared a... See more

As Girard once said: “There are fundamentally only two ways of looking at religion: as superfluous, added on—or as the origin of everything.” If there can be no in-between, I suspect that like Girard, Thiel sees religion as the origin of everything.

Let the flame of Definite Optimism burn away the Mimetic virus. Use the Internet to curate your environment, so you can be hyper-mimetic towards the rare few who are anti-mimetic. Copy the people who don’t copy people. Take risks. Build a differentiated skillset. Pursue timeless wisdom, not intellectual fashions. Be skeptical of convention, and... See more

“Younger Americans today are perhaps the first generation to be certain that they are and will be “worse off” than their parents. The interconnected nature of the world makes nightmare scenarios—pandemics, global economic collapse, climate-change disaster, cyberattacks, terrorism—all seem like genuine possibilities, even probabilities... Today hope

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Thiel’s attraction to secrets comes from a conservative writer named Leo Strauss. His writing was obscure because he hid truths behind a curtain of mystery. That way, they would only be shared with a small, select group of people. Make no mistake. Even today, forbidden truths are exchanged in closed forums, private conferences, and corner offices... See more