In today’s episode, Shawn O’Malley (@Shawn_OMalley_) goes through the best-selling book Zero to One by the prolific investor Peter Thiel, who’s best known for co-founding PayPal and Palantir and for being the first outside investor in Facebook. Thiel is a highly contrarian thinker, and the book organizes his notes from his time at Stanford lecturing to the next generation of Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurs.
You’ll learn Peter Thiel’s favorite question to ask in interviews, the difference between horizontal and vertical progress, how the Tech Bubble changed Silicon Valley, why Peter Thiel actually likes monopolies, what investors get wrong about competition, how the Pareto Principle applies to the venture capital industry, plus so much more!
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IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN
00:00 - Intro
06:06 - What Peter Thiel’s favorite interview question is
09:42 - What the difference is between horizontal and vertical progress
11:41 - Why Thiel thinks that technological progress has stagnated since the 1970s
17:43 - How Thiel took advantage of the Dot-Com Bubble to scale PayPal
19:57 - How the Dot-Com Bubble changed the culture of Silicon Valley and the goals of its founders
23:22 - Why Peter Thiel encourages funders to build a monopoly in specific niches
26:34 - How competition destroys profits
34:50 - Which types of monopolies are good for society
41:10 - What the Pareto Principle means for the venture capital industry
And much, much more!
*Disclaimer: Slight timestamp discrepancies may occur due to podcast platform differences.
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