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Thiel says he’s trying to get entrepreneurs to go after bigger problems (2014)
- montycantsin 10y agoDo you think he's referring to a Muslim registry or drones?
- antingate2 10y agoSolving the Muslim problem would be solving one of the hardest problem to solve.
- kobeya 10y agoWas that necessary?
- noir_lord 10y agoNecessary perhaps not but bitingly sharp, on-topic and worthy of a smile yes. Also with the canonisation of Mr Thiel around this place it's handy to put his statements in a proper context. If you think as I do there isn't much to admire about him TBH.
- mythrwy 10y agoWhy do people think Mr. Thiel supports a Muslim registry? Has he ever indicated that? Because he backed a candidate who sometimes says dumb things in order to get votes from certain groups doesn't mean he himself supports the full rhetoric. Parties are coalitions. Not everyone who is a Democrat can be accused of supporting every dumb statement or bad position from Clinton or Pelosi.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- noir_lord 10y agoI never made the claim that he did, you need to ask up thread.
- kobeya 10y agoThere was more evidence from your comment that you did indeed claim such a thing, than there is evidence for Mr. Theil supporting a Muslem ban. Which is the problem with the original post that unnecessarily politicized an inherently non political article, eliminating value of any surrounding discussion. It was not witty, not sharp, and contributed nothing while taking a great deal away.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dang 10y ago> Also with the canonisation of Mr Thiel around this place That is a highly inaccurate description of "this place". Please don't make up generalizations about HN to score rhetorical points. That's reliably a marker of a bad comment.
- kristianc 10y agoYes. The minute that SV becomes a growth-obsessed low value creation social-responsibility ignoring echo bubble where opinions are valued on the net worth of the person holding them, we're all screwed.
- xiaoma 10y agoIt's too bad to see the thread steered away from the entreprenurial topics covered by the article and into a tired political flamewar. Whatever political disagreements we might have with the author, that's no reason to cheat ourselves out of learning from his expertise as one of the most successful entrepreneurs and investors of our age.
- torbjorn 10y agoI completely agree. The human tendency toward partisanship is holding all of us back.
- dang 10y agoInflammatory snark on divisive topics is something we're trying to avoid here. So is using the site for partisan battle. Please don't create accounts to break the HN guidelines with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- kristianc 10y agoWell as someone who spent $10m shutting down a blog he didn't like, I guess he should know.
- Roritharr 10y agoHow about doing something meaningful about the Clathrate Gun? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis Turning the Methane Deposits into a business would be nice.
- gonzo41 10y agoI think were too late.
- saosebastiao 10y agoThe dismantling of the rent-seeking civil-liberties-stomping military industrial complex sounds like a good problem to tackle. Palantir first.
- idlewords 10y agoThis is from 2014.
- dang 10y agoThanks; added.
- elmar 10y agoit's from 2014
- nvalleysilico 10y agoFighting hate and white supremacy would be a big one.
- skylan_q 10y agoCheck out all these comments... ShariaBlue sure is busy and invigorated by David Brock's heart attack.
- some1else 10y agoI thought he said the market segment doesn't matter, as long as you're on track to monopolize it.
- dalbasal 10y agoI really don't see his perspective on a lot of these. I don’t think we’re living in an incredibly fast technological age. - ..speaking on innovation in fields outside of computing. I agree that the pace of tangible improvement in some fields (eg construction) has not been as fast as others, but a lot of things have been changing fast. Think of simple manufactured goods. Chairs, plates, etc. The labour efficiency or just end-user price and choice is far better today compared to a generation ago. For a lot of goods (eg clothes) most of the cost to the end user happens between factory door and checkout. We could be doing a lot better at that, but the actual process of turning sunshine, water & air into t-shirts and washing detergent is not stagnant. This happened during a period where China's annual addition of low cost employees to the global pool kept average wages and efficiency low. Labour efficiency would (will) be even higher as their wages rise. Progress is complicated. But I can't see how he comes to his conclusions. Maybe I'm missing some context.
- nibstwo 10y agoDue to globalization, which one (as Thiel does) could argue is not a sustainable source of intensive progress, but just basic labour arbitrage with an expiry date and zero sum implications long term.
- lj3 10y agoThis is the first story I've ever flagged not because of the content, but because of the ugliness of the top 5 comments.
- xiaoma 10y agoThere is absolutely nothing objectionable in the content of this article. It's also aimed squarely at "hackers" and entrepreneurs. Flagging privileges have been abused, too.