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Lecture 5, How to Start a Startup: Peter Thiel

startupclass.samaltman.com

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Re: Lecture 5, How to Start a Startup: Peter Thiel

#31

Post by lhh »

betadreamer wrote: post #8

I enjoyed the lecture, but I somewhat disagree with the scientist statement about how Y is close to 0. I think X is the one that is 0 because when the scientist makes an invention the market is so new that there is no market yet. Within this low market the Y value will be high because that is the only thing that exist in it. Am I the only one who thinks this way? or am i misunderstanding his statement. It could just…

When a scientist makes a new breakthrough that adds a lot of value to society, X by definition is large (X = value created). "Value" doesn't necessarily need to be monetary, it could be lives saved or some other metric, though eventually I think most big breakthroughs do become monetizable in some form, and his point is that the inventing scientist generally captures very little of that X.

Re: Lecture 5, How to Start a Startup: Peter Thiel

#33

Post by jonalmeida »

I think Peter is mistaken as to why science goes about inventing things with little financial gain. There are some people that don't want money (who would have thought?), but find more value in the research. It's fair to say that on the other hand, there are those who also want some sort of financial gain, so there should be a way for them to go about this.

> "If people at Twitter make billions of dollars, it must be that Twitter is worth far more than what Einstein did."

Do people actually follow this thinking? Can someone give a better example of how this supposedly works?

Re: Lecture 5, How to Start a Startup: Peter Thiel

#34

Post by onewaystreet »

jonalmeida wrote: post #33

I think Peter is mistaken as to why science goes about inventing things with little financial gain. There are some people that don't want money (who would have thought?), but find more value in the research. It's fair to say that on the other hand, there are those who also want some sort of financial gain, so there should be a way for them to go about this. > "If people at Twitter make billions of dollars, it must be…

Thiel isn't saying that scientists don't want to make money, but that there is an attitude shared by many of them that making money is somehow wrong. Thiel believes that this attitude is just cover for the fact that so few scientists are able to make money from their discoveries even if they want to.

You should go back and listen again to what Thiel said, this isn't something he believes. He is describing society's reaction to technological innovation. Steve Jobs, Apple and the iPhone are good examples. Is iPhone the greatest invention of the 21st century? Did Jobs create more value than Einstein? You would think so just going by the media attention they have received.

Re: Lecture 5, How to Start a Startup: Peter Thiel

#35

Post by analog31 »

jonalmeida wrote: post #33

I think Peter is mistaken as to why science goes about inventing things with little financial gain. There are some people that don't want money (who would have thought?), but find more value in the research. It's fair to say that on the other hand, there are those who also want some sort of financial gain, so there should be a way for them to go about this. > "If people at Twitter make billions of dollars, it must be…

I live in the shadow of a university that is a major biology research magnet, and quite a number of the professors have their own off-campus start-ups going on.

There's a widespread misconception about scientists too, due to the assumption that we're all academics. In fact there are quite a lot of scientists in industry, either in companies or as entrepreneurs. I've known quite a few millionaire scientists. Within the company that I work for, and in my side-business, I have a sincere interest in seeing my inventions commercialized.

I saw a video'd lecture by Alan Kay (probably linked to from HN) where he distinguished invention and innovation: Invention is creating new things, and innovation is bringing things to market. Those are separate skills.

Re: Lecture 5, How to Start a Startup: Peter Thiel

#36

Post by jonalmeida »

onewaystreet wrote: post #34
jonalmeida wrote: post #33

I think Peter is mistaken as to why science goes about inventing things with little financial gain. There are some people that don't want money (who would have thought?), but find more value in the research. It's fair to say that on the other hand, there are those who also want some sort of financial gain, so there should be a way for them to go about this. > "If people at Twitter make billions of dollars, it must be…

Thiel isn't saying that scientists don't want to make money, but that there is an attitude shared by many of them that making money is somehow wrong. Thiel believes that this attitude is just cover for the fact that so few scientists are able to make money from their discoveries even if they want to. You should go back and listen again to what Thiel said, this isn't something he believes. He is describing society's r…

Thanks for clearing that up.

The way I see it is that science refers to research in a very fundamental sense. Computer Science, Physics, etc. I don't understand just yet how you could put a value on things like that.

Re: Lecture 5, How to Start a Startup: Peter Thiel

#37

Post by fillskills »

Very eye opening. Personally this was the best of the series so far for me. Helped solve a lot of questions in my mind about why certain companies succeed (Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Tesla etc). Serve your niche well - is a often repeated quote, Peter just brought the idea to a higher level by answering the Why.

One thing he might be missing on is the idea of lean startups. Its my opinion that Lean Startups does not mean build and release crappy products, but to validate your market and market-fit your product before you spend years building a product. Just helps you improve your product faster (or ditch it) using market's help.

Re: Lecture 5, How to Start a Startup: Peter Thiel

#38

Post by increment_i »

I've noticed a refreshing contrast between Thiel and Graham's lectures concerning startups and what you typically read or see on Amazon's best seller 'Startups' category. It's nice to hear giants in this field basically tell you, "Go do something you think is cool or important, and do it much better than anyone else is even capable of doing." It's obvious of course, but it's a point that gets buried and needs to be resurrected every so often.

Re: Lecture 5, How to Start a Startup: Peter Thiel

#39

Post by serf »

Iftheshoefits wrote: post #16
melvinmt wrote: post #14

"I'm personally quite skeptical of all the Lean Startup methodology, I think the really great companies did something of a quantum improvement that really differentiated them from everybody else. They typically did not do massive customer surveys. The people who ran these companies would often, not always, have mild forms of Asperger's, so they were not actually that influenced, not that easily deterred by what other…

Almost nobody in this industry has "mild forms of Asperger's." That canard is used far too often, and far too often as an excuse for something much more simple: these people are socially indifferent, to be polite. Some of them are merely socially inept, but others (many? most?) are, to be quite vulgar about it, simply assholes.

>> Almost nobody in this industry has "mild forms of Asperger's."

but you're wrong.

http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aspergers_pr.htm...

http://blog.codinghorror.com/software-developers-and-asperge...

(not that I put much faith in Gawker..) http://gawker.com/5885196/the-tech-industrys-asperger-proble...

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111102/full/479025a.html

Re: Lecture 5, How to Start a Startup: Peter Thiel

#40

Post by jeffreyrogers »

coryl wrote: post #29
toomim wrote: post #27

Thiel's Einstein example was wrong: "You're the smartest physicist of the 20th century -- you come up with special relativity, you come up with general relativity -- you don't get to be a billionnaire; you don't even get to be a millionaire." Actually, Einstein WAS a millionaire. His net worth was around $1 million. http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-businessmen/richest...

1) That's a terrible source for data. 2) Being worth $1m is still terrible for having done everything he did.

Worth noting that $1mm in the 40s and 50s is much more in 2014 dollars.
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