Peter Thiel
Peter Thiel
Peter Andreas Thielis a German-American entrepreneur, venture capitalist and hedge fund manager. Thiel co-founded PayPal with Max Levchin and Elon Musk and served as its CEO. He also co-founded Palantir, of which he is chairman. He was the first outside investor in Facebook, the popular social-networking site, with a 10.2% stake acquired in 2004 for $500,000, and sits on the company's board of directors...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth11 October 1967
CountryUnited States of America
We live in a world in which courage is in less supply than genius.
Distribution may not matter in fictional worlds, but it matters in most. The Field of Dreams conceit is especially popular in Silicon Valley, where engineers are biased toward building cool stuff rather than selling it. But customers will not come just because you build it. You have to make this happen, and it's harder than it looks.
Today's 'best practices' lead to dead ends; the best paths are new and untried.
Every one of today's smartphones has thousands of times more processing power than the computers that guided astronauts to the moon.
I think what's always important is not to be contrarian for its own sake but to really get at the truth.
I worked at a law firm in New York very briefly.
Contrarian thinking doesn't make any sense unless the world still has secrets left to give up.
The optimism that many felt in the 1960s over labour-saving technology is giving way to a fearful question: 'Will your labour be good for anything in the future? Or will you be replaced by a machine?'
Unsolved problems are where you'll find opportunity. Energy is one sector with extremely urgent unsolved problems.
When parents have invested enormous amounts of money in their kids' education, to find their kids coming back to live with them - well, that was not what they bargained for.