Yeah there are far cheaper ways to “distract” from a monopoly than building Waymo from scratch. Alleging that whole project exists only as a smokescreen is pretty conspiratorial thinking.
I have had drinks with Peter Thiel. If you force him to answer more than one question about his theories it totally falls apart. Mostly the logic actually goes like this: oh if it doesn’t work I have the money to survive it and you don’t so I still win and claim I was right.
His lack of depth is obvious even from his speeches. He jumps from topic to topic and doesn't develop his ideas or show much internal organization. He has a pithy insight and then bounces to the next topic.
That said, if a 60 minute talk can provide even one useful insight that's useful, I'd say it's a win. And I think his "zero to one" talk had at least two or three.
Honestly, I concluded GOOG was an advertising company pretending to be a "tech" company some time ago, but if I say it I'm a "troll", if Thiel says it, well it might be true, right?
Ime he's a walking personification of "jack of all trades, master of none".
That's the perfect trait for a VC (broad knowledge is critical to identify market trends), but it has its flaws such as extreme simplification of complex topics.
That said, you can rightfully argue that this is why you are investing in egghead founders - so they can deal with solving those problems and logic gaps.
Yeah there are far cheaper ways to “distract” from a monopoly than building Waymo from scratch. Alleging that whole project exists only as a smokescreen is pretty conspiratorial thinking.
I have had drinks with Peter Thiel. If you force him to answer more than one question about his theories it totally falls apart. Mostly the logic actually goes like this: oh if it doesn’t work I have the money to survive it and you don’t so I still win and claim I was right.
I wish more people understood this.
His lack of depth is obvious even from his speeches. He jumps from topic to topic and doesn't develop his ideas or show much internal organization. He has a pithy insight and then bounces to the next topic.
That said, if a 60 minute talk can provide even one useful insight that's useful, I'd say it's a win. And I think his "zero to one" talk had at least two or three.
Honestly, I concluded GOOG was an advertising company pretending to be a "tech" company some time ago, but if I say it I'm a "troll", if Thiel says it, well it might be true, right?
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+1 on this.
Ime he's a walking personification of "jack of all trades, master of none".
That's the perfect trait for a VC (broad knowledge is critical to identify market trends), but it has its flaws such as extreme simplification of complex topics.
That said, you can rightfully argue that this is why you are investing in egghead founders - so they can deal with solving those problems and logic gaps.
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