Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Peter Thiel to step down from Meta’s board

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 276 posts

Re: Peter Thiel to step down from Meta’s board

#241

Post by randomsearch »

rahulgoel wrote: post #36
Waterluvian wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their pivot to Meta deeply reinforced the writing on the wall. And then their first ever report of a declining user count was the coup de grace. Come to think of it I need to verify that the user count did decline. I only heard that anecdotally.

- DAUs decreased -0.05% from 1,930m in Q3 22 to 1,929m in Q4 22. ("sequentially") - DAUs increased +4.5% from 1,845m in Q4 21 to 1,929m in Q4 22. ("year over year") - See pp18: https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2021/q4... DAUs are those using FB app only. Metric for those using all apps (Insta, Whatsapp, etc) increased. Btw - there are ~4.66B internet users - and FB has 77% of those log into one of…

Slight aside, but DAU is such a BS metric.

It's relatively easy to boost such numbers - just keep bugging people with a notification here or a sudden important event. And a user is not the same as a person.

I've noticed previously I've suddenly been spammed via email by Facebook at the end of the month, presumably to boost their MAU.

Much more meaningful would be a distribution of the number of minutes spent by individuals on the mobile app, and details of the click-through rate of adverts.

Summary statistics - if chosen properly - of both could avoid abuse.

I think at some point Wall St will be called out as having been very naive to pay attention to such stats.

Re: Peter Thiel to step down from Meta’s board

#242

Post by ComradePhil »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #206
ComradePhil wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I know, he doesn't think anyone should vote... because he understands that democracy is a tool used by the establishment to give people the illusion of freedom. This view is not unique to him. He shares it with several other libertarians, historical and contemporary.

From what I know, he doesn't think anyone should vote How about you cite a source instead of jumping on the false accusation bandwagon.

It's not an accusation, it's high praise.

https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...

https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/05/01/peter-thiel/suffrage...

Re: Peter Thiel to step down from Meta’s board

#243

Post by hinkley »

tpmx wrote: post #50
hinkley wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Co-founder of Palantir Technology. I'm gonna need a DNA swab on that one. Dude is filthy rich. Emphasis on the 'filthy'.

Why does his wealth change anything in this regard? I honestly don't get it.

When someone says, “emphasis on “ what response do you expect when you ask them why word B has anything to do with it?

Re: Peter Thiel to step down from Meta’s board

#244

Post by koonsolo »

beebmam wrote: post #30
user249 wrote: post #14

This podcast "The Peter Thiel Paradox" [1] explained a lot about the mystery of Peter Thiel to me. Turns out that there is less than meets the eye but he does have a specific talent for manipulating the political systems and government coffers to enrich himself, much like Richard Branson, or so the British podcast claims. [1] https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/the-lrb-p... One nitpick; Theil said "We…

Why do people with this much wealth want even more wealth for themselves? I've never understood this.

You could say that when you have that much wealth, you can retire and live the good life.

But it's true that these people keep going. Like Elon could have retired at any stage when he sold a company, but instead invested it in a new one. You know, spend time with family and friends. Instead he's running multiple companies.

My theory is that this is exactly the reason why they are so wealthy, and the rest of us are not.

Re: Peter Thiel to step down from Meta’s board

#247

Post by coldtea »

totesraunch wrote: post #211
dwmbt wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL, i would pay money to watch this in real time. another suggestive Thiel anecdote: after PayPal IPO'd the team threw a party to celebrate and he was said to have run a 10 game simultaneous (Thiel would play ten different games, moving through each board one move at a time, down the line) and was only beat by one person (David Sacks). after losing, he flipped the board and apparently responded to being called a sor…

When you have multiple game running isn't the trick just to play the move your opponent plays from the previous board? Do in reality you're only playing one game and everyone else is playing each other.

Only in cheap cons and fiction.

In real life, chess audience can immediately tell if you try that.

Re: Peter Thiel to step down from Meta’s board

#248

Post by coldtea »

vanusa wrote: post #187
Rebelgecko wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He wants to become chancellor of Austria? Or just parlay that relationship into another citizenship for his collection?

"High-level corruption as a service" is likely to be his main value proposition, basically. That's the takeaway to get from his partnering with Kurz.

>"High-level corruption as a service" is likely to be his main value proposition, basically.

He could have gotten that from almost anybody in Washington or Wall Street...

Re: Peter Thiel to step down from Meta’s board

#249

Post by coldtea »

beebmam wrote: post #30
user249 wrote: post #14

This podcast "The Peter Thiel Paradox" [1] explained a lot about the mystery of Peter Thiel to me. Turns out that there is less than meets the eye but he does have a specific talent for manipulating the political systems and government coffers to enrich himself, much like Richard Branson, or so the British podcast claims. [1] https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/the-lrb-p... One nitpick; Theil said "We…

Why do people with this much wealth want even more wealth for themselves? I've never understood this.

The poor and the aspirational class works for the wealth.

The wealthy work for power and control.

Re: Peter Thiel to step down from Meta’s board

#250

Post by coldtea »

piva00 wrote: post #237
okaramian wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't like the game, you should probably vote for politicians that change the rules. There isn't a real bound on wealth within the system we're in, until that changes this is reality and expecting people who play it to be inherently moral is naive. Note that Im not stating a judgement either way, just pointing out how the system currently works.

This system is all encompassing, politicians are in it as well. The only real system change is through revolution, and revolutions are never pretty.

Why would it have to be pretty?

Change needs sacrifice.

Post reply on HN