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Silicon Valley Investor Peter Thiel Wins Bet on Trump
- anguswithgusto 10y agoPayPal co-founder Max Levchin on Thiel: “He bets contrarian not when he knows he’ll win, but when he knows that his odds of winning are much better than most people think.” Makes you wonder with all of Palantir's massive data-mining if Thiel knew something the public didn't.
- 1457389 10y agoYou don't need the NSA to calculate that a couple million in donations (with added free publicity) is worth a shot at multi-billion-dollar public sector systems integration and analytics projects.
- Lordarminius 10y agoPeter Thiels entire philosophy is based on taking action based on insight/knowledge other people do not have, and avoiding the detrition of marketplace competition at all cost (see Zero to One). I'd wager its not an 'if' but a certainty that he knew something few others did.
- jgrahamc 10y agoMakes you wonder with all of Palantir's massive data-mining if Thiel knew something the public didn't. You didn't need Palantir to see the Trump result coming.
- hellogoodbyeeee 10y agoOh come on. Anyone using a data driven approach to predict the election was putting money on Hillary. If Palantir had data to predict a trump win, then that would be interesting to hear about.
- jgrahamc 10y agoAnyone? I didn't. I put money on Trump long ago.
- sharemywin 10y agoparent said data driven approach.
- chubot 10y agoCare to outline your thought process? I was trying to find unbiased election coverage, and I read Nate Silver's book a few years back and liked it, so I read 538. As I mentioned above, I was disappointed that he couldn't resist inserting petty personal insults about Trump into his articles. He was clearly invested in the outcome of the election, which isn't what you want from an analyst. While he wasn't as bad as the NYTimes, and he hedged his language, he was pretty firm in claiming a likely Clinton victory for the 3 months before the election. So I was honestly a bit surprised when Trump started winning, and then won decisively. I'm always interested in the areas where reality breaks models, where practice differs from theory, and this is an overt example.
- jgrahamc 10y agoFirstly, looking at politics in the UK and France (two countries that I follow closely) it was clear that there were a large group of people disadvantaged by the 2008 financial crisis who were outside the standard discussion seen in the media of politics. Secondly, Trump won the nomination with a huge number of votes. Thirdly, Brexit happened despite opinion polling being the other way. Then I started paying close attention to crowd sizes at Trump rallies and when Hillary appeared in public. The crowds never got smaller for Trump despite the press and stories around him. I looked at Nate Silver's analysis and guessed the firewall could be breached. Yet the betting markets had incredibly long odds on Trump; so I bet. Modestly since I'm no (b|m)illionaire.
- thrill 10y agoThis was hardly a clear deal. Trump won the election with fewer votes than the last two candidates lost with.
- tedunangst 10y agoLast week the Times had Trumps chances at about 7%. If you think the odds are more like 35%, that's 5x better. Still a long shot, but not impossible.
- randomgyatwork 10y agoI wonder if the media is incompetent or liars...
- chirau 10y agothey could also be both
- tedunangst 10y agoI'd say once you label all Trump voters deplorable racists, it becomes harder to get people to confess their sins to strangers calling them on the phone.
- ZeroGravitas 10y agoFacts are boring I know, but Clinton only labeled half of his supporters as deplorable racists (etc.)
- tedunangst 10y agoJudging by the comments I saw on Facebook and Twitter from Clinton supporters, that's a subtlety that got lost. They were in no particular hurry to clarify it was only half.
- at-fates-hands 10y agoA combination of both really. Sadly, its only going to get worse now.
- Lordarminius 10y agoThe media contributed directly to Clintons failure. There was no subtlety in their approach, the message was clearly biased against Trump and collusive with the establishment to push a candidate who was clearly tainted. Had Clinton taken a different more honest approach she would have trounced Trump. As it was, she could not and did not; she is an agent of large corporate interests People dont like being told what to do. They are sick and tired of public servants who have transmogrified into Lord- of-the-Manor type personalities and not just in America. Watch out as more establishment candidates fail across the world in the next couple of years.
- randomgyatwork 10y agoI feel like if you were paying attention, but avoiding mainstream media this result isn't so much of a surprise.
- Kinnard 10y agoWhy?
- randomgyatwork 10y agoFeels like a lot of middle wealthy left leaning people don't see what the reality is for most everyone else. Also, Trump was offering hope, Clinton was offering nothing but staying the same. I get the sense that the American economy is bad for most people, Trump talked about that, he said it was a problem. If you were watching mainstream news all you heard was about how great everything is and how it should stay the same.... That is simply not what many people think or feel.
- at-fates-hands 10y ago>> when he knows that his odds of winning are much better than most people think. This is the classic gambler's approach to betting. Attempt to reduce the odds to a reasonable level where you can minimize losses and maximize your profits. If you were paying attention to more objective polls, you would've known the mainstream media polls they were using were off. So much so, that Clinton started campaigning in red states and there were reports she wanted to make this a "historic" win. As in, it's not good enough to just win, she wanted to rub it in the faces of the Republicans (you know, because that's always good for bringing the country together - right?) when she did win. - So he knew the polls were off. - Then he probably knew there was a feeling of unrest considering the numbers Trump was getting. Not just in the primaries where he set several records for turnout and delegates. - Then he probably heard about the Allan Lichtman's prediction that Trump would win based on the enthusiasm he saw in the primaries. It was greater for Trump then it was for Clinton. Add in the margin of victory in the primaries was greater for Trump then Clinton and he said because of that, the real voter enthusiasm is with Trump, not Clinton. So here you have three things most people on the Left didn't want to hear. He also could probably see the media had gone 110% to shill for Clinton. Tamping down her email scandals, promoting the polls that say she's way ahead. If you listen to say Rush Limbaugh, or Hannity or Beck, you'd know it wasn't all rainbows and unicorns. So he hedged his bet and put his money on Trump given the above information.
- drzaiusapelord 10y ago>So he knew the polls were off. This is my thinking as well. Towards the end Nate Silver kept upping Trump's chances and other pollsters were baffled by Nate's changes. Nate kept arguing that due to curring polling methods, current models, the lack of young turnout, and a lot of disenfranchised voters coming out that Trump was doing better than he seemed. There was no "liberal media conspiracy" but the model changes you needed to make in what was an extremely oddball election year. Note, the pollsters that got Trump wrong got the last few elections right or wrong but within a respectable margin of error, so from a question of bias, the conspiracy theories just don't hold. Same with the Brexit, the pollsters just didn't see that silent majority voting yes. Nate obviously didn't change his model enough but he certainly saw the winds of change here and clearly other people like Thiel did too. Also, being a libertarian there's really no reason for him to support a Democrat anyway, so if he's going to play this game he's going to pick the GOP candidate. >He also could probably see the media had gone 110% to shill for Clinton. I didn't see this. Instead, I certainly saw the media play both sides as being less terrible than they truly were. I think there's a narrative of "oh they're just like each other so it'll be tight" and promoting a moral equivalence of "questionable email server use is just as bad as saying celebrity lets you grab women by their crotches with impunity" that sells ad impressions.
- chubot 10y agoI think this sums it up, and whether you agree with it or not, is a valid distinction to make: Describing the presidential campaign, Mr. Thiel said it was "between one candidate who says everything is more or less fine, or it’s as good as it can be. And then another one who says we’re on the Titanic, it’s about to sink. And so I prefer the second one." Now, it's perfectly reasonable to question if Trump has an actionable plan to make things better. I question that too. I also find it hard to ignore his remarks about ethnicity and women, but it seems clear to me that the media inadvertently helped Trump by screaming bigot, racist, sexist, etc. as loud as possible. When you call everything racist, it dulls the meaning of the word, and ends up hiding real racism. Another thing I appreciate from this election is that people don't like being told who to vote for. I didn't appreciate the shrill tone of every single news outlet and media source I turned to (and I barely watch news and didn't follow the election until very late.) I thought 538 would have "objective" coverage, but I didn't like that Nate Silver couldn't resist inserting petty personal insults about Trump in his articles. Even guys like Louis CK, Howard Stern, and Stephen Colbert turned out to have surprisingly little sense of humor about it.
- fiveoak 10y agoYep, and by calling Trump a bigot, racist, sexist, etc, they're inadvertently calling his supporters the same thing as well, causing a lot of them to just become more entrenched in their support for Trump.
- feelix 10y agoThe thing that bothers me both about Brexit and Trump is that the mainstream narrative is that it's about closed borders, racism, misogyny, etc. There is no evidence to suggest that the largest proportion of the voters for these things were motivated by that. One side loses, then they scream racist/bigot at the other side and then because it's the mainstream media those labels stick around. That does not help anyone and does indeed only widen the divide.
- somebehemoth 10y ago
- danso 10y agoVia the Washington Post's media columnist: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-media-didnt-want-to-believe-trump-could-win-so-they-looked-the-other-way/2016/11/09/d2ea1436-a623-11e6-8042-f4d111c862d1_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-media-did... > I’m no fan of Peter Thiel, the billionaire who put Gawker out of business by bankrolling a lawsuit by Hulk Hogan, the professional wrestler. In fact, I find him appalling. > But when he spoke recently at the National Press Club, he said something that struck me as quite perceptive about Donald Trump. > “The media is always taking Trump literally. It never takes him seriously, but it always takes him literally,” Thiel said. Journalists wanted to know exactly how he would deport that many undocumented immigrants, or exactly how Trump would rid the world of the Islamic State. We wanted details. > But a lot of voters think the opposite way: They take Trump seriously but not literally. > They realize, Thiel said, that Trump doesn’t really plan to build a wall. “What they hear is, ‘We’re going to have a saner, more sensible immigration policy.’ ” > Trump, quite apparently, captured the anger that Americans were feeling about issues such as trade and immigration. Thiel was completely correct on this. It's a sad(der) version of the stereotype of journalism just being uncritical transcribers of the powerful, except journalists were doing it (ostensibly) to hurt Trump. It's a great example of the damage of unconscious bias. If someone I love tells me they'll climb the highest mountain and swim the widest ocean to make me happy, I'll love them even though I know that's a literal lie. If someone I hate tells me the sky is blue, I still look for a way to pedantically correct them. I know it's popular for journalists to be opinionated and fight for the truth and all, but I can't help but think that if journalists even tried to just believe in that impossible ideal of idealism, more of them would have come to empathize with Trump's supporters -- not the wacky crazy ones that make for good TV -- and see Trump's promises as a signal of priorities, not a literal fulfillment that Americans want.
- yongjik 10y agoMaybe Trump won't build a wall, but voting for a candidate promising X while thinking "There's no way he will actually do X" is a risky decision. Back in 2007, South Korean candidate Lee Myung-Bak won presidency while prominently selling the concept of "Grand Korean Peninsular Canal", a construction project involving building a canal diagonally through the Korean peninsula, crossing mountain ranges ~1km high. It made zero economical sense (just take a look at the map), and was widely derided by opponents. Many of his supporters still voted for him thinking "Come on, there's no way he would actually do that!" Well, he almost did it in the names of "Four River Restoration Project", an Orwellian-named $20B project that kept the major part of the canal plan, plastering Korea's rivers with pointless dams, which inundated riverbanks, increased flood damage, decimated freshwater ecosystem, and polluted so much riverwater that you can't use it even for farming. Trump is now free to realize any of his promises as he sees fit, and no one will be able to say "American's didn't approve this", because he did promise them and then won based on those promises. It will be a fun ride for him.
- Yhippa 10y ago> When Mr. Trump speaks of building a wall on the Mexican border, Mr. Thiel said, “what [voters] hear is we’re going to have a saner, more sensible immigration policy.” I have no idea what to make of what Mr. Trump said. Am I to take him literally? Was this just posturing and he doesn't plan to do something like this? I have no idea.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- up_and_up 10y agoIt is literal: See "End Illegal Immigration Act" outlined here: https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/_landings/contract/O-TRU-102316-Contractv02.pdf https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/_landings/contract/O-TRU-102...
- kzisme 10y agoOh yes - I don't have the source right now, but there's a long list of things he plans to accomplish on the VERY first day of the job.
- kzisme 10y agoFor the lazy: >Fully-funds the construction of a wall on our southern border with the full understanding that the country of Mexico will be reimbursing the United States for the full cost of such wall; establishes a two-year mandatory minimum federal prison sentence for illegally re-entering the U.S. after a previous deportation, and a five-year mandatory minimum federal prison sentence for illegally re-entering for those with felony convictions, multiple misdemeanor convictions or two or more prior deportations; also reforms visa rules to enhance penalties for overstaying and to ensure open jobs are offered to American workers first.
- zeveb 10y agoSounds like a sop to the prison guards' unions.
- internaut 10y agoRepost. Having watched and listened to Thiel for several years now, I came up with a pet hypothesis I call 'The Wolfian World' that I feel describes what's going on more accurately than the newspapers. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12884413 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12884413