31–40 of 94 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> McKinsey study concluded that nobody in the developing world would buy smartphones because they were too expensive Just goes to show what all those fancy consultancies are worth. Same applies to Gartner and their "predictions". When are people finally going to stop for the scam of the big five brands?
big five?
> Sometimes, our sense-making machinery has a glitch too. Many years ago, a McKinsey study concluded that nobody in the developing world would buy smartphones because they were too expensive. Based on that study, they held off on launching a smartphone for another three years. Around that time, an anthropologist who had recently returned from Chinese refugee camps saw how people would sacrifice half their disposable…
I was confused by what you meant until I realized you were referring to the third sentence, not the second sentence. [Insert sentence here warding off replies about irony.]
Remote education is going to be huge, especially if sufficient numbers of people move after the pandemic. It's just that teachers are not the right people for it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> McKinsey study concluded that nobody in the developing world would buy smartphones because they were too expensive Just goes to show what all those fancy consultancies are worth. Same applies to Gartner and their "predictions". When are people finally going to stop for the scam of the big five brands?
big five?
Perfect example of a brilliant thinker who needs to be contained. It's great to begin with ways of thinking like he does; but his love for secrets make him dangerous; people like him do more harm than good to the world because they're very bad at the whole "don't tear a fence down until you know why it was put up" thing.
I understood the part about "secrets" differently. I read Thiel's book about entrepreneurial mindset, Zero to One, a few years ago and found it valuable. As a long-time serial entrepreneur myself (initially unsuccessful and eventually quite successful), Thiel clearly understands the complex dynamics deeply and offers actionable insights. One of the things Thiel touches on is how entrepreneurs are often contrarians trying to identify the occasional exceptions where mainstream thinking got something important wrong.
Paul Graham also talks about this, observing that entrepreneurs aren't just looking for "good ideas", they are looking for "good ideas most people are wrong about". This is necessary because if most people hadn't missed something then the "good idea" would already be a hotly contested mature market with deep-pocketed big players slugging it out for dominance. Pretty much by definition, a high-growth start-up must believe they've identified some aspect of the opportunity other smart people missed. The start-up might be wrong but when they are correct it can be both disruptive and transformative.
This is the context in which I read the discussion of "secrets"
> Sometimes, our sense-making machinery has a glitch too. Many years ago, a McKinsey study concluded that nobody in the developing world would buy smartphones because they were too expensive. Based on that study, they held off on launching a smartphone for another three years. Around that time, an anthropologist who had recently returned from Chinese refugee camps saw how people would sacrifice half their disposable…
Nokia failed at smartphones because they were forced to abandon Maemo and Symbian in favor of Microsoft's under-baked smartphone OS and the generally disastrous "leadership" of Stephen Elop, and subsequently being bought by Microsoft to continue to try to make Windows Phone happen at the expense of everything that succeeded at Nokia.
For all the Germans here: ZDF Magazin Royale just yesterday did the show on Peter Thiel: https://www.zdf.de/comedy/zdf-magazin-royale/zdf-magazin-roy...
> Sometimes, our sense-making machinery has a glitch too. Many years ago, a McKinsey study concluded that nobody in the developing world would buy smartphones because they were too expensive. Based on that study, they held off on launching a smartphone for another three years. Around that time, an anthropologist who had recently returned from Chinese refugee camps saw how people would sacrifice half their disposable…
Wait, what Chinese refugee camp? Where? From what war? China hasn't had a mass displacement event since well before the iPhone came out.
The reason I'm harping on this is because the author is committing the exact same sin they're accusing the McKinsey consultants of, a lack of cultural competence and curiosity that would rather have them substitute their stereotyped and prejudiced image of people rather than actual lived experience.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you're just saying that he might be dangerous because of his ego, not necessarily his ideas. Y'know, I'm not going to disagree there. But taking that big ego for granted, a "search for hidden secrets" is still one of the most socially productive ways you might use it for. Jumping on the bandwagon of a dubious social consensus can be a lot worse.
He literally funded Trump. “Productive” sometimes isn’t desirable.