Peter Thiel’s Religion

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.

As a libertarian who holds the New Testament as a seminal text, Thiel seeks to increase individual freedoms while preventing runaway Mimetic violence.

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

He doesn’t see the world as a mere distribution of luck-based outcomes. Instead, he praises conviction, bets on transcendent founders, and invests in the kind of companies he’d want to work for.

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 don... See more

We lack courage, not genius. We’re swimming in money, but starving for ambition.

Thiel asks: “Is this a business that I have enough confidence in that I would consider joining it myself?” If yes, he’ll consider an investment. If the answer is no, he won’t.

Thiel defines the four quadrants as such:1) Definite Optimism: The future will be better and we know how. 2) Indefinite Optimism: The future will be better and we don’t know how. 3) Definite Pessimism: The future will be worse and we know how. 4) Indefinite Pessimism: The future will be worse and we don’t know how. 

Picking a path reduces optionality, so people stay in limbo and don’t make commitments. This language doesn’t only apply to career planning. Some students talk about marriage as the death of optionality. But life is not like options trading.