from Hacker News

Peter Thiel AMA

by jordanbrown on 9/11/14, 6:22 PM with 88 comments

  • by ihnorton on 9/12/14, 5:00 AM

    Interesting point on science funding practices:

    I think there's been a Gresham's Law in science funding in this country, as the political people who are nimble in the art of writing government grants have gradually displaced the eccentric and idiosyncratic people who typically make the best scientists. The eccentric university professor is a species that is going extinct fast.

  • by jordanbrown on 9/11/14, 7:22 PM

    Intriguing.

    Question: What did you think when you first met Elon Musk?

    Peter: "Very smart, very charismatic, and incredibly driven -- a very rare combination, since most people who have one of these traits learn to coast on the other two. It was kind of scary to be competiting against his startup in Palo Alto in Dec 1999-Mar 2000."

  • by prawn on 9/11/14, 11:09 PM

    A few of his answers seem brief when I wished he had time to answer in full. Selling something aside, I've always wondered why people commit to an AMA and then don't dedicate the time to over-delivering with comprehensive answers? Is it just a matter of something being better than nothing?

  • by arjie on 9/12/14, 8:34 AM

    Most of his comments I can understand, but to be honest I can not glean a shred of understanding from the following answer to the question about his Christian faith and libertarianism:

    > To think of Christ as a politician might be the easiest way to get him all wrong. The theological claim that Christ is the "son of God" is also the anti-political claim that Augustus Caesar (the son of the divine Julius Caesar) is not the "son of God." So I think that Christ should be thought of as the first "political atheist," who did not believe that the existing political order is divinely ordained. Now, I think that there is lot of resonance between political atheism and libertarianism, even if they are not strictly identical...

    http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2g4g95/peter_thiel_tec...

  • by onedev on 9/11/14, 7:04 PM

    "At 22, I didn't think it was important to meet people."

    I thought that was interesting.

  • by eglover on 9/11/14, 7:30 PM

    He was also just on The Tim Ferriss Show:

    http://fourhourworkweek.com/2014/09/09/peter-thiel/

  • by tienlehut on 9/12/14, 2:35 AM

    Q: Is Palantir a front for the CIA?

    @peterthiel: No, the CIA is a front for Palantir.

  • by dfc on 9/12/14, 1:00 PM

      > many of the bad monopolies in our society involve the unholy
  > coalition of urban slumlords and pseudo-environmentalists.
    Does anyone know who these "bad monopolists" are?

  • by quadyeast on 9/11/14, 11:48 PM

    awesome - "Bonus tip for philanthropists: Find a way to sue Intellectual Ventures. If we could get rid of these parasites, we'd all be better off."

  • by DAddYE on 9/12/14, 4:20 AM

    > And more generally: the NSA has been hovering up all the data in the world, because it has no clue what it is doing. "Big data" really means "dumb data."

    I think he nailed it. Working a bit with "big data" I 100% agree with him.

  • by 1337biz on 9/11/14, 10:50 PM

    As a Girardian acolyte, I'm curious if there any private truths you can reveal to us?

    I am not getting this. Anyone care to enlighten me?

  • by mempko on 9/13/14, 1:20 AM

    Soubds like rich person who wants to stay rich. Since I am not rich, I have vastly different values.

    I can not relate to this man at all.

  • by lukasm on 9/12/14, 11:53 AM

    >What is the Straussian interpretation of Zero to One?

    >Perhaps you should not become an entrepreneur...

    eh?

  • by notastartup on 9/12/14, 1:57 AM

    Just asked Peter Thiel a question. I hope he responds.

  • by staunch on 9/12/14, 12:48 AM

    > The restaurant industry in SF is very competitive and very non-capitalistic (e.g., very hard way to make money), whereas Google is very capitalistic and has had no serious competition since 2002.

    Either situation could change very quickly. A meal delivery restaurant chain could take SF by storm and rake in billions. A startup could launch tomorrow that begins rapidly stealing Google's market share. Nothing prevents this but the lack of people willing and able to do it.

    Private individuals are free to upend industries without fear of unreasonable government interference. This is what capitalism is and it's alive and well in most industries.