Big Think Interview With Peter Thiel | Big Think
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- Big Think Interview With Peter Thiel
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A conversation with the venture capitalist.
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PETER THIEL:
Peter Thiel is an American entrepreneur, hedge fund manager and venture capitalist. He is Clarium’s President and the Chairman of the firm’s investment committee, which oversees the firm’s research, investment, and trading strategies. Before starting Clarium, Peter served as Chairman and CEO of PayPal, an Internet company he co-founded in December 1998 and was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in October 2002.
Prior to founding PayPal, Peter ran Thiel Capital Management , the predecessor to Clarium, which started with $1 million under management in 1996. Peter began his financial career as a derivatives trader at CS Financial Products, after practicing securities law at Sullivan & Cromwell.
In addition to managing Clarium, Peter is active in a variety of philanthropic and educational pursuits; he sits on the Board of Directors of the Pacific Research Institute, the Board of Visitors of Stanford Law School, and is an adviser to the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Peter received a BA in Philosophy from Stanford University and a JD from Stanford Law School. He is self-described libertarian and a minority investor in Big Think.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Question: Bill Gates believes that the free market fails to encourage innovation in areas where there’s a long timeframe. Do you agree?
Peter Thiel: Well, I think that markets classically fail in cases where there are public goods that provide benefits that people cannot capture. The big debate is how big these public goods are, where they exist, things of that sort. I do tend to think that things that have incredibly long time horizons often do involve market failures. So if you think about basic science or coming up with new theories of mathematics, these are not the kinds of things which are necessarily a well-defined market to pay people.
At the same time, I think one of the places where I would disagree with Gates is that it is not at all clear that we have a government that is doing this much better. And so even though I think markets are often not thinking on a long-time horizon, I think that our government structurally is doing even less so. When we have a government where we have people who are up for election at most once every six years for a U.S. senator, that’s a time horizon that is much shorter than in a market that, you know, a company is looking at 10, 15, 20 years which is a time horizon over which a stock price is typically valued.
Question: Is there a better way to encourage long-term innovation?
Peter Thiel: There is a lot that could be done with the market. I think, we want people to have long-term time horizons and so I think to some extent it is... there’s a cultural question, there’s people should be thinking of their life, you know... life is long. It doesn’t end in six months or three years or whatever the next line on your resume is, it’s something that for most of us we can expect to go on for quite a number of decades ahead. And so I think somehow people should be encouraged to think about a very long time horizon and I think this is true for businesses, it’s true for governments and it’s true for people doing things in the non-profit sector.
Question: Will technology reshape capitalism in the future?
Peter Thiel: Technology and capitalism are very much linked. I would frame the link a little differently. I think that capitalism probably works best in a technologically progressing society. In the developed world, technological progress means that you can have a situation where - where people - where there’s growth, where there’s a way in which everybody can be better off over time.
If you have technological progress, that will encourage more capitalist system. On the other hand, if you don’t, if things are stalled, you end up with much more of a zero sum type thing, where there’s no progress and basically everybody’s gain is somebody else’s loss. And that, I think, tends to encourage a much less capitalist system, and that’s where you sort of get a you know, what are often called a bull market in politics, but politics becomes more important, people become more interested in using the government to get things for...
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It amazes me that so few people are interested in what this man speaks on.
It used to amaze me too, then I realised it is much rarer to be intellectually curious to learn from free thinkers like Thiel than people like to admit.
Ngl all he said was "people can live for decades". That's not groundbreaking
Peter has a rare gift to articulate ideas in a digestible way. Normally people with 160 iqs can’t be normal around us regulars.
@@notWaldont Prove it. Also remember that I’m not that smart so do it in a digestible way that I’ll be able to grasp.
@@notWaldont Prove it.
And what exactly are my interests?
@@notWaldont So you don’t know me but you’re assuming that his ideas are probably against my interests?
If you don’t know me than shut the fuck up lol. If you want to critique a specific idea of his than do it.
@@notWaldont So far you’ve told me I’m being played, when asked to clarify or prove it you didn’t. You claimed to know what my interests “probably” are, and that Peters ideas are against them. And again when asked to clarify or explain yourself you were unable to.
I’m happy to hear counter arguments but silly snarky comments from a lazy is a waste of my time. Provide a substantive argument or gtfo lol
@@notWaldont so you really have nothing to add? Can’t put forward a single argument to refute anything Peter said? All you are capable of is telling people that listen to him that they are being played? Without a single argument to back that claim up?
Pathetic.
Very impressed. Peter Theil is full of knowledge and wisdom.
The only authentic iconoclast in the Technology sector. When I first entered the world of Technology (worked for several High Tech companies) I was flabbergasted by the lack of intellectual freedom. It was the exact opposite of what I thought it would be entering. Luckily, there are people like Thiel and Elon Musk out there.
For me he is genius, all he is telling makes sense... it's just majority of people isn't interested.
Are you stupid??? This guy is one of the richest people on Earth and his fortune depends on him staying out of the limelight so he can continue destroying big tech.
He is spot on about the lack of innovation in certain areas. I also believe that he is doing a great job in addressing issues like that by exploring new frontiers. The ventures he is a part of will surely spur innovation and, hopefully, facilitate in solving some of the world's most egregious problems.
every admission on his part is literally projection. Dude is a hack and never had an ounce of wit.
why do ppl dislike theil? he is honest
Because they dislike his libertarian ideas. They want to suck of the tit of government and are envious of successful people. At the same time they fear technology and change. A guy like Thiel hits on all of the trigger points.
I find people often get angry when you disagree and they don't have a cogent argument. I also feel this way, when I'm feeling frustrated someone is "winning" an argument, that's when I know I don't understand something or I'm wrong.
+shadfurman that's awesome you're at least aware of it
M3Lucky thx, in the end, it's really only self interest and ego. I want to be more like the intellectually honest people I admire.
I think that, at least in part, it is precisely because he is honest..
The developing world innovated in ways the developed world wouldn't let it, but ultimately had no say: in banking and finance.
In the developing world, so much banking happens without ever having to involve banks. It's wild really.
Actually there are a huge amount of people out there who would kill to know half of what Mr. Thiel knows. Just saying.
Truths have been spoken.
I don't know why but I find the sound of his voice calming like Sam Harris.
I really like(love) that tie!
Libertarian until he needs his bank deposits fully insured and then socialism for him is just dandy
Why do people give this man thumbs down?
Because he's is a libertarian. He thinks government interfere too much with our lifes. I believe government has to interfere in a smarter more efficient, less ideologically driven. But there are hundreds of cases where if government doesn't interfere, many die. If government doesn't help level the economic playing field in education, the poor are doomed to stay poor. If government doesn't interfere in healthcare, the rich would be fine, but the poor, god help if they ever got sick. Capitalism in general can be a force of good but can also be a force of extreme evil without government preventing cartel, oligopolies, price fixing, price gouging.
Countries that are accepted as the most advanced in the world have substantial government driven regulatory systems.
In reality the issue isn't government per se, but rather the level of education, awareness and consciousness of those that elect the politicians that drive government. The problem isn't politicians, it's the people that elect them.
There is just way too much stupidity on the part of libertarians in their naive solutions to problems.
Because I profoundly disagree with Mr Thiel principles, I'm giving him a thumbs down.
One big problem with the US government is bipartidarism. Specially gerrymandered bipartidarism. Districts that are safe GOP or safe Democrat tend to get the worse of them elected, since primaries on those districts will tend to select the most radical candidates.
What we need is an enlighthenment party, that shows how both the GOP and Democrats makes huge mistakes (including the Tea Party and Libertarian rifts of the GOP).
Because people are dumbass collectivists who have the arrogance to deny the merits of free will and instead would rather have a powerful central government direct everyone's life to create what they believe would be a utopian society, despite the fact that they would be unwittingly supporting the creation of an oppressive society not unlike the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. Most people have no understanding of economics or the dangers of government. Peter Thiel is too smart for most people to understand, so instead of accepting that they are idiots, they protect their egos by insulting him and bringing him down.
elviscash56 Ohh naive one, you need to look no further at the monster cartels, oligopolies and other abuses of the capitalist system. Unregulated capitalism is VERY BAD ! Communism is worse. Just because silicon valley did faily well over the last few decades it doesn't mean that libertarianism is the solution to all problems. It's not ! You're probably too young to see that.
elviscash56 Matter of fact, just look at the whole situation of the consumer ISP/Telco market in the USA. The whole Comcast issue. With Comcast doing it's worse to bribe everyone that is in power to stop them. So, do you think the solution is to have nobody with the power to stop them ? No, the solution is to elect better politicians and to exert people's oversight over those with the power to oversee capitalism.
YPeezy Liberal zealots
4:55 True. But analogies break down at some point.
For example, nobody needs plastic surgery right now to live.
Next, health insurance is less likely to cover plastic surgery.
But, it does prove that medical procedures could get cheaper and better.
I think you should email them anyway and say that. They may still let you apply.
I like how he brings up computers, internet as innovation when a lot of that and other technology was created in the state sector with public funding. Also Thiel is an Aristocrat who relies on the State. CIA and NSA are the biggest beneficiaries of Palantir.
How is this guy not president?
Stock valuators look at 10 years horizons. mmm no. Also, stock valuators may do that analysis but CEOs are only worried about the quarter most of the time. Sorry to break it for ya Peter
Interesting reading of technological innovation and growth vs. politics and government regulation.
The volume of this vid is way too low
>when you start an internet business during the internet boom of the 1990s and sell it and become a billionaire and suddenly you become a philosopher and more than just a businessman who was in the right place and time
Market failures are like someone trying to sell me a product or service and i buying and not liking and buying from another iniciative?
I agree Peter Thiel is a genius along with Elon Musk. But he is wrong about China playing catch up with 19th century plumbing and 20th century railway system. They have the most advanced rail transportation system in the world here. I came to China to do my MBA not USA exactly because they have 20+ years of double digit growth.
China is a bubble fueled by the massive flow of United States consumer dollars flowing there in exchange for their cheap mass produced products. The Chinese government has taken that money and leveraged it to the hilt to build massive infrastructure projects that are largely being neglected and unused. If China converts to a truly capitalist economy like the United States was before the 1930s then they could have a genuine shot at becoming the United States of the 21st century but that is unlikely because they have severe systemic problems as well as coming demographic changes. Their old one child policy is about to bite them in the ass because the next generation will have far fewer people to supply cheap labor for their factories. Add in the terribly inefficient way that government runs anything, especially an economy and you will have a situation similar to what happened to the Soviet Union, they will simply collapse. As the old saying goes, what can't continue won't. And No economy can grow at a double digit rate forever.
Their railway system is 20th century bought technology. It may be top notch, but it's still old technology, and that's what he was referring to. The only reason other countries don't have a railway system the likes of China is because high speed rail is impossible to run profitably (proven by countless studies of the matter), certainly not because China is so advanced.
Thiel speaks in general terms, and you mention the railways?
I am sure China is better at dealing with high number of people on practically every area, especially transportation. - That does not change the general point.
You may be right on this point. China uses a top down approach, which is not suitable to entrepreneurship.
Fadaourl It was an illustration of his general point.
If you want the government to regulate all of the important areas of life, don't be suprised if all of the innovation is in trivial matters that don't actually improve your life.
there is no free book with the Kiyosaki advertisement.
Ben Powell has a really good lecture on government failure and market failure. Its "Ben Powell: Antitrust sand Monopolys"
David Friedman has a good lecture on market failures too
I'm a big fan of Peter Thiel but I must say that I prefer reading his books rather than listening to him talk because his voice is a bit monotone.
+Cedric Eveleigh good logic
+Cedric Eveleigh Has he authored any other book other than Zero to one?
Cedric Eveleigh What extremely intelligent people besides Bill Clinton are dynamic speakers? I can't think of any.
Christopher Hitchens, Peter Hitchens, Steve Jobs, Jordan Peterson, Stephen Pinker, Neil Degrasse Tyson, to name a few.
Thiel is great!
Please subtitulos en español....!!!!
Theil worried about government not being run by engineers and scientists.
I wonder how he thinks Trump's cabinet of maniacs and philistines is going to work out.
thumbs up for this comment
aww man 20 under 20 =( . my country has 2 year mandatory service so during 18-20 i was in army xD
can I get an amen.
NEBARI
If he says uh or umm one more time...
I think that
Umm uhh
So basically he sort of invents a problem he sees in government and then offers no actual solutions other than talking about “culture”.
This guy bought Propaganda adds. On facebook ro psychologically manipulate people into voting Trump.
He is wrong about a few things here
Peter Thief
do tell
Why? Can you elaborate?
This guy bought Propaganda adds. On facebook ro psychologically manipulate people into voting Trump.