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Peter Thiel on what works at work (2014)

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

#71

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…

If you're not interested in being friends with a person of a certain gender/race/whatever then you probably wouldn't want to work for them either.

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

#72
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Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with that? IMO wanting to be an entrepreneur is one of the best reasons to start a company :)

The problem comes when MBAs, generally without technical background, build companies without real value and expand an already existing bubble.

Indeed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wharton_School_alumni with all due respect it's a bit tiring to hear about all those 'uselss MBA' stereotypes. There's a substance to it but I start to feel that 9 out of 10 comments like this one reflect the insecurity of the author rather than anything else.

One of the people not mentioned on the list is founder of Warby Parker - surely he contributed to the bubble by building the 2nd most profitable retail stores and one of the few startups that are actually profitable.

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

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It starts even earlier than business school, with the kids who campaign to be president of ten different school clubs just for the sake of being in a leadership position and being able to put it on their resumes. American culture really encourages this shallow sort of leadership by entitlement, while truly great leaders almost always earn their authority through a medium to long period of hard work side by side with…

In what way is becoming president of school clubs a form of entitlement?

Becoming president of school clubs isn't entitlement. What I mean is that the culture around leadership positions in high school incubates the attitudes that Michael was complaining about. Some students do legitimately learn a lot being the president of a high school club and are able to do good stuff with it. Many students, though, just run for the resume item, to help themselves rather than really to serve the organization and help it do interesting things. And because of the way our culture treats leadership, as if it were something that can exist without context, that becomes part of their identity. They've been the "leaders" of organizations all their life (which in some cases involves little more than organizing social events), they've gone to these fancy schools, and now, as a result, they ought to be in charge later in life, because that's who they are and because Harvard doesn't train followers, it trains leaders. But just because someone is the president of a social club or an a capella group in college (not to say that this is not a worthwhile thing to do), it doesn't give them any more right or qualification to be the leader of a law firm, or an engineering firm, or an advocacy group, or a theatre troupe. Leadership isn't a single skill or quality; it exists entirely within a context.

I don't have any problem with club presidents in general. I do have a problem with some of the ideas U.S. culture (or at least middle class upward-aspiring culture) has about leadership, and I think those attitudes do lead to a destructive form of entitlement.

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

#74
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Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Try to hire people you could become friends with" seems like a really bad idea from the discrimination point of view, since people are most likely to view someone of the same race, age, and gender as a potential friend.

"You try to hire people you could become friends with" is a profoundly stupid maxim. People who come from conservative and religious societies will always be pressured by friends to not make new friends who are of different ethnicities. Thiel is basically ensuring each company Will become a little Island of segregation and this is what I have seen in the bay area: companies that are 90% Indian, 90% Chinese, or 90% wh…

If you are comfortable being friends with many different kinds of people, it may be just fine.

If not, you may be bad at leadership regardless.

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

#75
post #40
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Try to hire people you could become friends with" seems like a really bad idea from the discrimination point of view, since people are most likely to view someone of the same race, age, and gender as a potential friend.

"You try to hire people you could become friends with" is a profoundly stupid maxim. People who come from conservative and religious societies will always be pressured by friends to not make new friends who are of different ethnicities. Thiel is basically ensuring each company Will become a little Island of segregation and this is what I have seen in the bay area: companies that are 90% Indian, 90% Chinese, or 90% wh…

Please don't delete comments and repost them.

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

#76

The interview is excellent, and has great nuggets of wisdom. The one that particularly stood out was-- "People always say you should live every day as though it's your last. I sort of have taken the opposite tack, where I think you should live every day as though it's going to go on forever. You should treat people like you're going to see them again in the future. You should start working on projects that may take a…

The competition is for losers, in my understanding is saying don't enter a competitive market where you're not going to change it. For example, don't start a restaurant or a store -- unless you're going to be extremely different.

"Competition is for losers" seems like pretty weak reasoning to me. As far as I can tell, it goes something like:

Success is not random. Therefore, if you are successful, there is something different about you. Therefore, you are a monopolist. Therefore, competition can't make you successful.

But that's not very helpful. Every business on the planet can claim some kind of differentiation -- maybe their supply chain is more efficient, or their company structure is superior, or their sales channels are smarter, or...

More differentiation might be "better" in some sense, but differentiation is often decided after the fact. It wasn't obvious that Google was differentiated until they took over the market.

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

#77
post #33

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…

"Try to hire people you could become friends with" seems like a really bad idea from the discrimination point of view, since people are most likely to view someone of the same race, age, and gender as a potential friend.

I don't think "friend" is meant in the context of "someone that you would invite to hang out at a local bar to get some wings, beer, and watch the game".

It's more of "a person whose unique experience, drive and motivation can teach you something and who's pleasant and educational to be around in circumstances outside of employment contract".

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

#78
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem comes when MBAs, generally without technical background, build companies without real value and expand an already existing bubble.

I don't think I would join a startup that wasn't founded by people with some kind of technical degree.

For some companies the core value is the tech they produce, and thus having non-tech people at the helm makes little sense.

Others, usually also dubbed "tech startups" due to their Silicon Valley location, use generic pieces of technology to achieve their purpose. There are entire sectors (ad tech, Uber for X), where basic building blocks have been built and now it's sell, sell, sell.

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

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way is becoming president of school clubs a form of entitlement?

Becoming president of school clubs isn't entitlement. What I mean is that the culture around leadership positions in high school incubates the attitudes that Michael was complaining about. Some students do legitimately learn a lot being the president of a high school club and are able to do good stuff with it. Many students, though, just run for the resume item, to help themselves rather than really to serve the orga…

I don't think you're going to get an accurate view of people at Harvard, even people that were involved in student government or were club presidents, if you generalize them like that. If I were to generalize, I'd think that most people that were high school club presidents and leadership camp-goers were really cynical about it, not entitled. (That's just based on the people that went to my high school.)

I also don't think the cause-and-effect story is really there. The one startup founder that I know personally that I've heard be called a douchebag is somebody that started the company early on in high school, that bootstrapped it up with his brother from money made by selling bootleg CD's at soccer practice, and never went to college. And the other >bad personAlso, to the degree that these people do exist, or to which this attitude has been inculcated into a group of people, the sink-or-swim situation of running a startup seems like a great place for them.

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

#80
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Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You try to hire people you could become friends with" is a profoundly stupid maxim. People who come from conservative and religious societies will always be pressured by friends to not make new friends who are of different ethnicities. Thiel is basically ensuring each company Will become a little Island of segregation and this is what I have seen in the bay area: companies that are 90% Indian, 90% Chinese, or 90% wh…

I come from an incredibly conservative family (literally had pictures of Reagan and Cheney on the wall) and they had no problems with my engagement to an Hispanic woman.

Yes but how would they react to your sister dating a black man?
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