On: Stagnation, Innovation, and What Not to Call your Company
Episode: 1
Date: April 2015
Background: Founder of PayPal, author of “Zero to One“, etc.
Key Subjects:
- Innovation issue: stagnation in the world of atoms, not bits:
- Atoms are more regulated than bits.
- New drug development slow, software development okay.
- Innovation requires coordination across domains.
- Gov’t today less efficient in driving this.
- Atoms are more regulated than bits.
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- Environment is more opaque.
- Specialization has increased the power of self-reinforcing expert communities.
- Science increasingly politicized.
- Less room for eccentric professor types.
- Environment is more opaque.
- Progress pushed by people that take risk despite discouragements of society and social conventions.
- Entrepreneurs sometimes more oblivious to these deterrents.
- Some have mild form of Aspergers.
- [Put differently, they are more willing to accept likely individual negative outcomes of risk-taking behavior; the type of behavior that benefits society as whole, but not always the individual.]
- Political and economic systems changed by non-conformists with strong convictions.
- Benefit of combining apparent opposites:
- Idiosyncratic individuals with original ideas that are also able to function socially and execute.
- Decline of globalization since 2007.
- Globalization is about horizontal progress (copying).
- Maybe running out of things to copy.
- Technology is about vertical progress (new things).
- Much less of it today.
- Requires looking at: what is no one else doing that you are good at and passionate about.
- Globalization is about horizontal progress (copying).
- NGOs: have a counterfactual sense of mission: if you are not doing it, no one else will.
- Democracy and capitalism:
- Power of representation moderated by judicial system and unelected institutions.
- Increasingly, decisions made by judiciary and technocratic agencies.
- Elected officials not necessarily better at making decisions (limited capabilities).
Key Takeaways:
- Pursue something that you are passionate about and that what not happen if you would not do it.
Worth Listening:
This type of interview (short, specific questions) works well to bring out Thiel’s typical contrarian and non-conformist perspective on a wide range of topics.
7/10