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Peter Thiel on what works at work (2014)

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Peter Thiel on what works at work (2014)

#91

Post by eli_gottlieb »

jseliger wrote: post #14
jasode wrote: post #3

>Peter Thiel is often described in techno-hyphenated words: ... Techno-utopian. I think the journalist got that characterization wrong. 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. [1] https://www.youtube.…

I wouldn't even call them tech-utopians. I would call them people who do know that a) the world can be made a better place but that b) for that to happen people must make it happen. I can't speak for any of the three but I don't think any of them are utopians; understanding that progress can be made isn't the same as utopianism. Journalists seem to like phrases like "techno-utopian" in order to make them sound more l…

People nowadays like to use the word "utopian" as a snarl-word for someone who hasn't gotten the memo that people are So Totally Over This Whole "Progress" Thing.

Re: Peter Thiel on what works at work (2014)

#92

Post by crdb »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #7

> 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. They're interested in Silicon Valley now. Here's an actual conversation I had recently with a business school student (not verbatim…

In a couple of years, your conversation will sound like this:

You: so, what are you doing these days?

MBA: well, I've been at McBainCitiGold for a couple years, but I'm getting bored, I'd like to start up!

You: oh really? Go for it! I really don't regret doing it myself.

MBA: yeah, but I'm just waiting for the right idea. And the salaries are too low. The kids, school, car, condo... By the way, do you have any ideas?

Wait a few more years and this time they'll tell you about how they'd like to invest in startups, but the entrepreneurs ask for too much, so they just had to invest it in property instead. Or are on their 17th meeting with a poor founder who for some reason (location, CV, lack of connections) is stuck raising from this type of amateur angel, unable to pull the trigger and "keeping options open".

This being said, I don't blame them. Startup life (outside the megafunded) is tough, has low expected value, requires sub-optimal life decisions (goodbye family) and, I think, only fits certain types of people who are very independent minded and enjoy that kind of challenge. The MBAs I know who did it with the express intent of getting on with a company fit that type, and one of them has hired his 100th employee last year.

When I hear a corporate type say "oh, I'd like to do startups" I think it's pretty similar to hearing many people say "I'd love to try the military". A passing thought, either being polite (admiring your life choices) or to be rapidly dismissed once encountering what those career paths entail.

Re: Peter Thiel on what works at work (2014)

#93

Post by crdb »

jroseattle wrote: post #21

Something I found very 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 ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2015/03... ). 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 "frie…

I read it differently. There's two ways to deal with trust:

1. you can try and hedge yourself against employees doing bad things. Like quitting for the competition or passing information. In this model, employees are paid mercenaries and none are crucial to the company. This is favored by corporations as it is good risk management.

2. you only hire people whose values align with yours, and where one strong shared value is sticking together.

The prisoner's dilemma is a good framework to see why either can work.

1. assumes defect/defect, which results in poor but positive outcomes. Corporations are inefficient, but they are profitable. You keep good people by paying them more than the competition, not by building trust and values-based friendship.

2. is cooperate/cooperate, which results in large positive outcomes for as long as you can maintain it, but the first breach of trust (the first instance or even possibility of a defect) results in a catastrophic negative outcome. For example, if you're having a few rough months and your CTO - who built 80% of the site and is the only one who understands the data model - leaves for a better paid job.

This is part of why it is so rare for more efficient upstarts to win against large corporations in their own market - by the time they get big enough, the startup looks too much like a corporation to maintain its cooperate/cooperate environment.

Where things get interesting is Andreesen's "Software Eating the World" essay. Some companies have recently surfaced (Instagram, Whatsapp, most hedge funds) where a small number of people highly trusting each other have managed to scale the outsize outcome to corporation levels.

And I think this is what Thiel is trying to say (or at least what he makes me think about): if your co-founders are practically "family", you might be more likely to go down that path. Whereas Zuckerberg prefers playing it safe, and assuming people will defect and scaling his company accordingly - especially since there is no shortage of capital to keep the best.

Re: Peter Thiel on what works at work (2014)

#94

Post by modfodder »

vonklaus wrote: post #90
modfodder wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many intelligent human beings who suffer from many forms of gender and/or race bias. Our very nature as humans is to surround ourselves with people who look, act, and think like us. Hiring people that could be your friends without having the insight to get beyond the inherent bias in all of us could very easily lead to a corporate structure that is extremely myopic. Not that it won't be successful, just end…

Hiring someone for the sake of diversity is absolutely stupid. Also, not sure what you are on about? The advice is to hire someone who you could get a beer or shoot a game of pool with after work and carry a non-awkward conversation and talk about overlapping interests. A person of any gender or nationality could potentially fit this bill.

Not sure what part of bias you don't understand or that we as humans tend to congregate with those that are like us. All things being equal but race, a white male will tend to hire the white male, even if he could equally socialize with a candidate of another gender or race. That is why I pointed out that it is best to have the "insight to get beyond the inherent bias in all of us", so we could see that maybe grabbing a beer with someone who doesn't look like us is equally viable. Hiring for the sake of diversity is less stupid than hiring just because you like the same team or drink the same beer, that behavior should have been left at the frat house after you graduated.

Re: Peter Thiel on what works at work (2014)

#95

Post by jroseattle »

brador wrote: post #22
jroseattle wrote: post #21

Something I found very 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 ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2015/03... ). 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 "frie…

I see it as Peter saying hire for culture, Mark saying hire for talent.

I agree with this summarization as well. What's implicit in both of these (IMHO), is that the type of friends Peter Thiel looks for will naturally be talented. And likewise for Mark, where someone he respects enough to consider working for is likely someone he would befriend.

Big assumptions, but those guys are in the type of position where that's likely a reliable expectation.

Re: Peter Thiel on what works at work (2014)

#96

Post by bhayden »

s73v3r wrote: post #86
ryanSrich wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're an employee hoping to make it rich by working on someone else's startup you're doing it wrong. Work for someone else because you need steady pay. Work for someone else because you appreciate what they're doing. If you want to make a lot of money you need to take risks. Start your own startup. Go 4+ years without a salary. The co founders might not be the ones actually building the product but they're the on…

Why are we rewarding someone who's "taking a risk" rather than the people who are actually doing the work?

It's not like the people doing the work are doing it for free. They're not sacrificing much. The people taking the risks are the ones sacrificing and enabling the creation of something, so they're the ones who gain from it.

Re: Peter Thiel on what works at work (2014)

#97

Post by s73v3r »

bhayden wrote: post #96
s73v3r wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are we rewarding someone who's "taking a risk" rather than the people who are actually doing the work?

It's not like the people doing the work are doing it for free. They're not sacrificing much. The people taking the risks are the ones sacrificing and enabling the creation of something, so they're the ones who gain from it.

But what, exactly, are they enabling? What couldn't the people doing the actual work do without them?

Re: Peter Thiel on what works at work (2014)

#98

Post by kybernetikos »

prodigal_erik wrote: post #82
kybernetikos wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hiring people culturally similar may sounds sensible in theory, but it may not be sensible in practice. I haven't seen stats on startup hiring, but I read this about investment, which in my opinion stands a good chance of having a similar effect: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/7069.html "The probability of a successful exit outcome decreases by 18 percent if two venture capitalists who previously worked at the same compan…

Maybe investors are more properly skeptical about dumb opportunities proposed by someone with a dissimilar background. Founders and employees have a much greater need to work together day-to-day and trust each others' judgment.

It's certainly plausible. I can tell a plausible story from the other side though - the primary feature of being a start up is learning, and if it's an echo chamber you're going to be learning the wrong things and relying on things other than facts to dictate your business strategy.
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