Something I found <i>very</i> interesting was Peter's comment: "You try to hire people you could become friends with." I contrast this with Zuckerberg's approach to only hiring people that he would work for (<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2015/03/05/mark-zuckerbergs-hiring-secret/" rel="nofollow">http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2015/03...</a>).<p>It's probably not fair to put these side-by-side due to context, but Peter's approach resonates with me now. Here's how I reconcile this: Peter's "friends" concept is about the long-term effect on yourself (and your team around you). Mark's "work-for" concept is about putting the very best people around you to build and operate a company. They could certainly co-exist, depending on your personality.<p>Mark's approach (for me) makes great sense on paper, but Peter's approach comes with the value of been-there-done-that. Both have their place, but over the long haul, I can really appreciate what Peter is talking about.
> They’ve done studies at Harvard Business School where they’ve found that the largest cohort always went into the wrong field. So in 1989, they all went to work for Michael Milken, a year or two before he went to jail. They were never interested in Silicon Valley except for 1999, 2000.<p>They're interested in Silicon Valley now. Here's an actual conversation I had recently with a business school student (not verbatim obviously, but accurate as far as content):<p>Me: What are you doing after you graduate from HBS this spring?<p>MBA: I want to do startups.<p>Me: Oh cool, do you know which one you're going to work for?<p>MBA: Oh no, I want to <i>start</i> a startup.<p>Me: Oh okay, what's it going to do?<p>MBA: Don't know yet!<p>Me: Oh...
The interview is excellent, and has great nuggets of wisdom. The one that particularly stood out was--<p>"People always say you should live every day as though it's your last. I sort of have taken the opposite tack, where I think you should live every day as though it's going to go on forever. You should treat people like you're going to see them again in the future. You should start working on projects that may take a long time. And so I want to live every day as though it's going to go on forever." [0]<p>The one I couldn't agree with (and one that features in his book Zero to One) was about 'Competition is for loosers' I find it ironic that he brings up example of Google and the monopoly it holds over the market... but wasn't Google entering the search market as a competition to multiple other internet firms before they leap-frogged them with all the talent they gobbled up from DEC?<p>I like the hypothesis about how there is always more than one entity (or a person) that's trying to do invent something almost at the same time-- theory of Relativity [1], the airplane[2], the light blub [3]... and how each of them were competing against time as much as each others to be the first to achieve the breakthrough.<p>[0] <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/218217-work-for-a-better-life-as-if-you-live-forever" rel="nofollow">http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/218217-work-for-a-better-lif...</a><p>[1] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_priority_dispute" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_priority_dispute</a><p>[2] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_flying_machines" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_flying_machines</a><p>[3] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb#History" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb#Histor...</a>
>Peter Thiel is often described in techno-hyphenated words: ... Techno-utopian.<p>I think the journalist got that characterization wrong.<p>Based on PT's writings and interviews[1], he's not a techno-utopian. My cursory google searches doesn't show that others call him that either. Techno-utopians would be people like Ray Kurzweil, Kevin Kelly, and Marc Andreessen. And possibly Elon Musk as well.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yztBoNQRYo" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yztBoNQRYo</a>
>>A lot of business books are these pseudo-scientific books that say, “These are the five steps to follow and you will make a lot of money.” But if you have no formulas, you will be open to some new possibilities, some new ideas.<p>This is the beauty of capitalism...there is no formula for success, which means no one can monopolize or control that formula, and everyone has a shot :)
>And I think it’s interesting to explore how unusual that is relative to many other areas of technology, because there are so many innovations that were good for society but the people who came up with them ended up with very little.<p>Okay, co-founders sometimes end up with a fair amount money. However, early employees that actually built the company are often forgotten and given a relatively small sum of money. Not sure if SV really changed that.
Instead of living everyday as if it was your last or as if it was going to go forever, how about living everyday as if you're going to die at around 80-85?
> "There are all these things that you never know whether they’re features or bugs—in a company or organization, or even in a personal trait."<p>Very true, and one can defend either side of it as per the situation.
"Always prioritize the substance of what you're doing. Don't get caught up in the status, the prestige games. They're endlessly dazzling, and they're always endlessly disappointing."
That point about employees not having friends at work being at risk is true in my case - if I don't have friends where I work I don't feel at home, and am indeed more likely to leave. Which is a force for anti-diversity, since I only rarely make friends with Asians (of either sort). And I'd bet that this is the rule, not the exception.
> Q. Some people outside Silicon Valley see it as a place that is not really in touch with the rest of the country. Does that ring true to you in any way?<p>> A. There is a big disconnect, because you have this sense of stagnation and slow growth in many other places, and you have this incredible boom in Silicon Valley.<p>This makes me think he doesn't get it...