Sam Altman: "A big secret is that you can bend the world to your will a surprising percentage of the time—most people don’t even try, and just accept that things are the way that they are.
People have an enormous capacity to make things happen. A combination of self-doubt,
Brian Ji
265 posts
technology, markets & media
Joined April 2019
- Peter Thiel: "Many of the more successful entrepreneurs [in Silicon Valley] seem to be suffering from a mild form of Asperger’s, where it’s like you’re missing the imitation, socialisation gene. It happens to be a plus for innovation and creating great companies, but I think we
- Peter Thiel on the single most important event in the history of Facebook.
- Peter Thiel: Meaning is found in doing things that are important, that otherwise wouldn't get done. Aim to work on things which without you, wouldn't / couldn't get done by anyone else.
00:00 - I often think about the fact that at 31 years old, Charlie Munger was divorced, broke, and burying his 9 year old son, who had died from cancer.
- Peter Thiel: “It’s always a big mistake going after a giant market on day 1... Almost all of the successful companies in Silicon Valley had some model of starting with small markets and expanding. What’s very counterintuitive about many of these companies is that they often
00:00 - Thiel: “Almost all of the successful companies in Silicon Valley had some model of starting with small markets and expanding.” Amazon started with books. PayPal started with eBay power-sellers. Facebook started with Harvard. Airbnb started with renting air mattresses. Tesla
00:00 - Peter Thiel: "Elite students climb confidently until they reach a level of competition sufficiently intense to beat their dreams out of them. …institutionalized education traffics in a kind of homogenized, generic knowledge. But life is not a portfolio: not for a startup
- Sam Altman: "I remember when Elon took me on a tour of the SpaceX factory many years ago. The thing that sticks in memory was the look of absolute certainty on his face when he talked about sending large rockets to Mars. I left thinking 'huh, so that’s the benchmark for what
00:00










