11 ms·

The famous Peter Thiel interview question

83 points by vinnyglennon 7y ago

throwaway724 7y ago
Ehhhhhhhh. Auren ran one of the shadiest companies in recent history (Rapleaf) and he's discussing Thiel, who in my opinion was completely in the wrong w/r/t Gawker and is incredibly thin skinned and petty for someone who talks about the things that he does. The core point is correct: you want (for lack of better phrasing) "out of the box" thinkers in your leadership roles, particularly in the early stages. But I would take either of those two as a model with the biggest grain of salt possible; you can be courageous and out of the box without being insanely unethical or a vampire-like dick, respectively.
- prepend 7y ago
  > who in my opinion was completely in the wrong w/r/t Gawker I have a different opinion for four reasons. I appreciate Thiel’s long term thinking and just the effectiveness of the plot. That’s rare and neat, I think. But I also think it’s right because Gawker was a plague on society with its gossipy, trash journalism. We are better off as a society without the type of articles that out people because editors don’t like them or don’t like their politics. Specifically, they were in the wrong with Hogan and what they did was heartless. Finally, Gawker died legally. No laws were broken. Thiel had beef, for whatever reason and he used the law. While I don’t think Gawker is anywhere near more useful and professional news outlets (eg, NYT or Post) I think if other newsmakers break the law in such a way, they should be treated exactly the same way.
  - femiagbabiaka 7y ago
    Gawker reported on Weinstein at a time when other publications wouldn’t for fear of reprisal. We are not better off as a society when billionaires with histories of poor morality can arbitrarily destroy media companies. Get a grip.
    - _vertigo 7y ago
      Not that I agree or disagree, but he didn't say that, he said we're better off without Gawker, or rather, the type of articles that it published. There's a difference.
      - femiagbabiaka 7y ago
        We are not better off without Gawker.
        _vertigo 7y ago
        Well, okay. Again, I'm not taking a position on this one, just saying that you two were arguing different points.
    - natalyarostova 7y ago
      Arbitrarily? Either you don’t know the history of this case, or you’re misusing this word.
    - ALittleLight 7y ago
      Thiel didn't destroy Gawker with a mercenary army. He financed a lawsuit which was found to be meritorious. This is not an "arbitrary" thing at all. Whatever Thiel's beliefs or motives, Gawker published a private sex tape for no legitimate reason. When a judge ruled they had to take it down, they disobeyed the injunction. As Thiel points out, one social problem that this exposes is that even a single digit millionaire like Hulk Hogan didn't have access to the legal system. Hogan should have been able to get the result himself, but needed a billionaire to finance him.
    - anonymousab 7y ago
      >Gawker reported on Weinstein at a time when other publications wouldn’t for fear of reprisal They also created, hosted and pushed a "celebrity stalker map" for the express purposes of stalking people. There is a laundry list of reasons to have no sympathy for Gawker, and enough for many people to have wanted to see some comeuppance. >We are not better off as a society when billionaires with histories of poor morality can arbitrarily destroy media companies. We are better off when a company that goes too far, legally, faces ramifications for their actions. Even if the cause for those ramifications was less than pure; The motivations of the person who caused the action are kind of irrelevant to the action and result that occurred. The worst part of this situation is not that Thiel funded someone else's lawsuit, but that access to justice required and requires that kind of funding. Not that Terry Bollea had his case handled without worry, but that everyone else does not.
  - DuskStar 7y ago
    > Finally, Gawker died legally. No laws were broken. Thiel had beef, for whatever reason and he used the law. Not to mention the fact that Gawker probably didn't have to die but instead basically committed suicide. Going into court and saying that you'd happily publish a toddler's sex tape isn't exactly sound legal strategy.
    - bedhead 7y ago
      And Deadspin recently committed suicide too. All of these folks are just bad people. Gawker and all of its sister sites were/are stains on the world.
      - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
        Are you seriously making the case that the writers who quit Deadspin over issues of editorial freedom — not, to be clear, the freedom to publish salacious gossip, but to publish articles that weren't strictly sports-related, no matter how provably popular and critically acclaimed they were — were "just bad people" because they refused to sit down, shut up and get in line? Gawker certainly crossed a line they shouldn't have, and maybe that line was so egregious that they deserved to die and have their remains put through the shitshow that they've been through the last few years. But that's entirely orthogonal as to whether sites related to Gawker ever did good journalism. They did. They had some terrific writers — particularly at io9 under Charlie Jane Anders and Annalee Newitz (both now award-winning science fiction authors), but around the network you'd find Brian Lam, Jason Chen, Stephen Totilo, Gina Trapani, Erica Sadun, Sam Biddle, and yes, love him or hate him, Gawker founder Nick Denton himself was a pretty damn good writer. They published some terrific articles. And the world of online publications is a little dimmer with them effectively gone.
  - kick 7y ago
    I personally agree with the 'idlewords view on Gawker. https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Apinboard%20gawker&src=typd https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Apinboard%20gawker&src=ty... They did call out that Clinton and Dershowitz went on the jet that Epstein used to let powerful men have sex with underage women in 2015, and that alone is worth quite a bit. Probably more than any slight against Thiel. Thiel being poked in a way that paints him as a hypocrite is constructive, all things considered. Seeing billionaires as "regular Joes" is something that probably needs to stop for the long-term viability of the American experiment. Thiel, a conservative who's been donating thousands a year to Republican politicians since at least 2000 (this is all public record; it's worth a glance if you're interested), who recognize the people in the sexual demographic that Thiel belongs to as degenerate, is in fact one of the people they hate. This is important for the public to know for a few reasons. An obvious reason, of course, is "Hey look, you don't matter at all to the types that have millions of dollars!" is an important thing for LGBT people who don't have that. Highlighting Thiel as a man who adheres to "Got mine" philosophy is really good, because it allows everyone else to know that once you get to a certain level of protection, solidarity doesn't really exist. Politics are war, and when you have a person regularly dropping $4,000,000 a year on political donations to causes that are directly harmful to you, it makes sense to combat them. I'm close to the same side as Thiel politically, but even I can't say that Gawker doing that was a bad thing. That Thiel doesn't believe in freedom of speech is ridiculous, given the views he claims to espouse. But if you see it for what it is (a billionaire wanting free speech for himself, but not caring whether it's a thing for others), it makes sense.
Pfhreak 7y ago
Is this really a good predictor? This seems like practically it would be used to not hire people on the basis of 'culture fit'. I can think of many answers to this question that could disclose a protected status, political or religious ideology, or some other belief that now you have to consider in the candidate. (What if someone says, "Software engineers should fight for unionization.") Do you really get a good signal on the three things the question is intended to find? (Whether people fear judgement, aren't introspective, etc.)
- gav 7y ago
  > Is this really a good predictor? It's a good predictor if you wanted to hire people that knew who Peter Thiel was. It's the sort of question that people answer better if it's not the first time they've heard it. A really good candidate might be able to push back and ask what population of people the interviewer meant by "few people". There's views that I have around technology that few people in the world (relativity) have, but are orthodox if you narrowed that group to just software developers.
- ThrowawayR2 7y ago
  > "I can think of many answers to this question that could disclose a protected status, political or religious ideology, or some other belief that now you have to consider in the candidate." Funny you should jump straight to those things. Given how opinionated we all are, I imagine most experienced software professionals would have at least one contrarian opinion about something technological in their profession. I can think of a few without even trying.
  - Pfhreak 7y ago
    I'm a hiring manager, one of the things that's drilled into me during my trainings is to be conscious of what questions are off limits during hiring. :D
Causality1 7y ago
>It’s a great question because almost everyone cannot come up with an answer that most people they know do not agree with. I would argue it might be the case that people can't come up with an opinion they're willing to share with the interviewer. If you believe something truly taboo, like that children should be sexually active or a certain race or religion or nationality deserves to be exterminated you're not going to just tell someone because they asked.
empath75 7y ago
It’s a dumb question, because heretical is a meaningless term in the context of the tech industry. To the extent that it ‘works’ it’s probably going to screen for self-important assholes. Which, given that it’s a peter Thiel question...
monocasa 7y ago
I mean, he's also just an open fascist who wants to work with other fascists. > I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible… The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women—two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians—have rendered the notion of "capitalist democracy" into an oxymoron. https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio... Ie. women shouldn't have gotten the vote because democracy for other people reduces his freedom to put his boot on their neck. Edit: Would love a counter argument rather than or in addition to a drive by downvote. Because of course the guy who openly talks about how terrible giving women the vote was asks people about their heretical ideas in an interview. That doesn't mean it's something to emulate.
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  Feel free to hate both, but libertarians are very much not fascists.
  - monocasa 7y ago
    He's literally saying that giving women the vote was a mistake. Are you saying that this is compatible with libertarian thought?
    - zozbot234 7y ago
      That's not what he's saying. He's just pointing out that women are less likely to vote for libertarian policies. Replace "women" with "Trump voters" if you like, pretty much the same idea - and yet, no one's actually saying that the "deplorables" should not get to vote.
      - monocasa 7y ago
        He's talking about the "extension of the franchise to women". That's giving them the vote. His literal thesis is "Freedom and Democracy aren't compatible anymore".
iainmerrick 7y ago
A comment on the format rather than the content: it’s weird how this article includes what look like pull-quotes, but are actually embedded tweets by the author saying the same stuff that’s in the article. I’ve seen that style used when quoting other people’s tweets, but exclusively quoting yourself that way just seems strange!
- petetnt 7y ago
  The dude recently compared[0] himself to MLK, Gandhi and the others for working more than 40 hours per week so somehow I am not that surprised. [0]: https://twitter.com/PenLlawen/status/1210874395734003713 https://twitter.com/PenLlawen/status/1210874395734003713
- phoe-krk 7y ago
  This tends to provide more context by means of twitter comments. You can click the tweet under a particular quotation and see the discussion that happened underneath it.
  - iainmerrick 7y ago
    Why would I care what replies random Twitter users made? If you want to highlight a particular conversation thread, by all means, link to that (probably via one of the many Twitter thread collation apps).
    - phoe-krk 7y ago
      Some people enjoy reading such conversations. You may simply not be one of them; that's fine.
- sings 7y ago
  Yep this definitely comes across as a cheap way of getting more clicks/follows rather than actually being useful to the reader. This guys heretical belief seems to be that self-promotion isn’t tacky.
femiagbabiaka 7y ago
It’s somewhat impressive the degree to which an industry that thinks of itself as being so enlightened falls prey to cults of personality so often.
- throwawaymath 7y ago
  And also ironic, given the subject matter of this particular article (contrarianism as empowering idea generator). Once upon a time, similar thinkpieces extolled the virtues of asking candidates to introspect on their greatest weakness. How...original. What avant garde, thought provoking questions will people in a decade ask as a reaction to present interviewing trends? Actually I think that question is a candidate for its own answer, now that I think about it...this is like borrowing cocktail party discussion for interviewing.
- Mr_Shiba 7y ago
  Yep, borderline hollywood celebrity nonsense, pretty sad indeed
- milofeynman 7y ago
  Not a single original idea in the article. Just repackage ideas hoping for clicks. Well said.
willberman 7y ago
I generally like a lot of what Thiel says, but people need to be very careful about being heretical for the sake of being heretical. I find a lot of people (myself included) have a tendency to pretend some mainstream way of doing something is wrong for the sake of having some insight that everyone else missed. However, there is generally, at a minimum, some wisdom of the crowds.
sillysaurusx 7y ago
My own answer: "Most traditional graphics programmers are wasting their time. AI renderers will replace all the techniques we use today, not merely augment the techniques. A graphics engine in 20 years will look nothing like current codebases." I'm referring to cutting-edge engines. There will always be space for stylized renderers. But photorealism? All your BRDF knowledge might as well be raindrops in the wind. It's unfortunate that the most interesting ideas can't be voiced publicly. It's a good question. I don't think it's good for interviews, but it's a good way to meet interesting people.
- djmips 7y ago
  Rendering already has turned over several times. Graphics programmers from the past already 'wasted their time'. Techniques have been replaced. I don't think your main hypothesis is very heretical. AI will probably take a prominent role in all upcoming rendering tech.
euphemisms 7y ago
> "As a leader, you should cultivate an environment where employees feel safe to share heretical views, especially if they solve a problem or lead to a growth opportunity. And you can do the same in an interview process." James Damore would like a word with you.
robocat 7y ago
Another benefit is that the interviewer has a chance to learn a new uncommon truth. Perhaps something that can be invested in. I think Soros said he loved to find mistakes in his own thinking, especially if it was a mistake others were making, since he could then use that knowledge to invest.
genS3 7y ago
"A good answer is one that sparks a unique view of the world and shows the candidate doesn’t think like their peers. This signals that the candidate 1) thinks differently; 2) is open-minded, and 3) is brave enough to discuss an unpopular opinion." try answering an unpopular opinion in PC BS companies like google,twitter,fb and others and youll get blacklisted.
Avshalom 7y ago
This is just "what's you're biggest weakness" for people who think they're interesting.
- ericb 7y ago
  Exactly! According to the article, "most people think they are heretical, but are actually mainstream" -- that includes the interviewer! Any candidate smart enough to have heretical beliefs is probably also smart enough to know that the beliefs are heretical because they are unpopular and voicing those opinions to someone who, by the odds, most likely isn't heretical, but thinks they are, can only be a negative for your hiring prospects.
  - wallace_f 7y ago
    >can only be a negative Your argument is noy exactly true. If the value of finding a similarly open-minded individual outweighs the low probability* of finding it, then it makes sense. Put another way if given a utility function with terms (utility of open minded individual) (probability of OMI) > 1 then it is rational.
    - ericb 7y ago
      I'll concede that, and also that my phrasing is off -- it should be "is most likely a negative." All that being the case, there's still a certain irony to this chapter in Thiel's book. Thiel thinks that thinking different on god or the existence of god is a terrible answer, even though it often means someone has a heretical belief vs. perhaps their parents and potentially the bulk of society. His justifications for why this is a bad answer are flimsy, and seemingly the only reason he thinks this is because he agrees with mainstream thinking. This proves the danger of answering the question--the spirit it is received, even in book form from the very person advocating it, is judgment of the answer and an underlying preference for mainstream thinking.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
Nition 7y ago
> The Thiel question is a great one because it reveals that most people hold conventional opinions and call them “heretical.” Selecting a response that sounds "heretical" but is actually fairly mainstream sounds like exactly the sort of response you'd try to come up with in a job interview. In other news, the famous interview question "what would you say is your greatest weakness" reveals that most people's greatest weakness is actually not very bad, and could even be spun as a positive.
- rytill 7y ago
  That last one would make an excellent Onion article.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- ksdale 7y ago
  I’m also not convinced it’s a useful interview question because of the issue you raise, but thinking your mainstream views are heretical extends far beyond job interviews. It seems like whenever I hear people talk about politics, they speak as though they’re persecuted lone wolves going against the current, but they tend to have opinions that something like half the country holds, which I would define as very mainstream. I also think this occurs with myths that have been “busted,” someone will go around for years thinking that everyone else is sheep for still believing in the myth, when the reality is everyone else read the same article and no one really believes the myth anymore. And then there are the countless posts on Reddit or Tumblr or Imgur or Facebook where someone dramatically makes a stand, admitting that they will be burned at the stake for their position, to the great applause of everyone watching.
  - empath75 7y ago
    > It seems like whenever I hear people talk about politics, they speak as though they’re persecuted lone wolves going against the current, but they tend to have opinions that something like half the country holds, which I would define as very mainstream. Half the country and probably most of their social circle.
timkam 7y ago
First of all, is there any evidence that this question is predictive? Secondly, the article is celebrating this question (which certainly is creative and somewhat intriguing) in a way that seems to be weirdly inconsistent: you ask me about a heretical view I have. In favor of the question, let's assume that it's a view related to the industry/product/whatever I am supposed to work with. Now, if most people disagree with my view, how likely is it that you will agree? This assumes both you and I possess a secret truth. You, supposedly an influential business leader, want to keep this truth a secret, or fail to convince others of the truth. This just seems bogus. If I succeed at answering this question in a way you like, isn't it more likely that I make something up to cater to your inflated ego? If there's no evidence that this question works, my line of reasoning is just as good as the one provided in the article.
- sillysaurusx 7y ago
  Now, if most people disagree with my view, how likely is it that you will agree? I think this is the spot where your logic stopped working. The idea is that you don't care whether they agree. You'll listen to opposing arguments, of course, but the goal isn't to get them to agree. They're asking you because they're interested. Or at least, that's how it should work. It stops working when it becomes an interview question. The point is to see whether someone thinks originally. If you have opinions you're reluctant to share among peers without wording it carefully, and you've spent a lot of time thinking very carefully about the topic, then there's a pretty good chance you're an interesting person to know. EDIT: Another way to phrase it: If you give an answer that you truly believe and that you've thought carefully about for a long time, and they disagree loudly and immediately, then there are two possibilities: Either they have given the topic more thought than you (which is entirely possible), or they are less open-minded than they think they are. Both outcomes give useful information to you.
  - throwawaymath 7y ago
    > If you have opinions you're reluctant to share among peers without wording it carefully, and you've spent a lot of time thinking very carefully about the topic, then there's a pretty good chance you're an interesting person to know. Though we won't be able to make good on the bet, I would confidently wager a supermajority of people who fit that criteria are not particularly interesting to you, or any given individual for that matter. In my experience, most people who spend a long time thinking about their controversial beliefs aren't especially insightful or interesting to those who disagree with them. For low hanging fruit we can just look at politics. But even beyond that, the universe of controversial ideas is so vast that it's unlikely a person's given muse will be compelling or insightful to other people.
mlthoughts2018 7y ago
A lot of my peers are brilliant people and they know more than I do about a wide range of topics. I want to copy their beliefs a lot of the time when I don’t have special evidence to have my own view. This post’s advice is extremely bad because it forces some level of optimizing for uniqueness (very ironic this is related to Thiel’s question too, since it plays right into Girard-style mimetic fighting to differentiate one’s self from otherwise highly similar peers). But uniqueness is not valuable in a vacuum. You actually need the unusual views to be correct and valuable in some way. Merely creating some spark of uniqueness is pretty useless and often harmful. If someone said to me that inside their field of experience (life, or professional or otherwise), they have sufficient reason to have an unusual belief, but for everything else they either copy another expert they trust or else default to conventional wisdom, that would impress me. If someone goes out of their way to hold unusual beliefs in areas where there is no reason to believe their judgement, that’s a sign of reckless beliefs and immature virtue signaling.
abbadadda 7y ago
Is it just me or is this post riddled with grammatical or spelling errors? Or just omission of words or backwards logic: > One learns quickly in life that it is never fun to be unpopular. Everyone has felt it at some point in their life. Most people never want to feel it again and so they go against the grain. Why would most people go against the grain if they never wanted to feel unpopular again?
motohagiography 7y ago
If Thiel asked me these I'd answer, but some rando recruiter or HR person, I'd just answer how much I admired Nelson Mandela, because that's the answer to every HR question anyway.
CapmCrackaWaka 7y ago
Ehhhh the responses given by this question, in my opinion, would be heavily driven by the interviewee answering in a way they think the interviewer wants to hear. Most people are self aware enough that they are not going to be spewing out their _truly_ controversial views on politics/religion/whatever to this person they barely know. You cannot say that nobody holds controversial views when the views discussed come from job interviews, of all places...
ElDji 7y ago
Perfect use case for Carl Sagan's baloney detection kit.
tehjoker 7y ago
I wonder if many of these "think differently" questions are less about finding a brilliant theorist and more about finding people who can cope with social condemnation that comes with operating the gears of capital and have the capacity to produce rationales that create enough space to operate without being shut down. After all, few big innovations come from business, most come from research. Thiel is looking for capable managers of capital. This after all explains Theil's own career of holding opinions that are not brilliant, but are socially destructive while simultaneously making him rich. He think the female vote was a mistake, he founded a deep state company that assists in intelligence gathering for the military-industrial complex and the NSA. He killed a newspaper.... and so on. He has been called a neo-feudalist.
- cvhashim 7y ago
  He also has a doomsday bunker in NZ
pkilgore 7y ago
This post assumes that this question is predictive, which is something I'd much rather see established first...
- twelve40 7y ago
  It doesn't just assume that, it throws a massive celebration party for that question without any basis for it whatsoever. Other than some self-absorbed opinions.
khendron 7y ago
If I answer "That's a really dumb question!" am I being heretical or conventional?
cagenut 7y ago
on a related note, I find very few things more predictive in how much I'm going to like a person than the side they take in thiel v gawker.
flaque 7y ago
Having an unpopular opinion that's also backed up well is rare in the information age. If a view has evidence to support it, that evidence is available to everyone and there will undoubtedly be communities that support it. Folks with heretical views tend to either have rare knowledge or to be wrong.
- apta 7y ago
  Having some communities support it does not contradict that it can still be an unpopular opinion. For example, consuming alcohol is a socially acceptable practice in practically all Western nations. There are studies showing the strong correlation between alcohol consumption and crimes, rape, homicides, etc. yet people are still willing to continue the practice because "it's fun".
  - beatgammit 7y ago
    So, would this view then be considered "heretical"? > Alcohol should be more strictly controlled than marijuana because it has greater potential for harm. It's true and bucks the mainstream, but it's highly unpopular and will likely annoy the interviewer if they like to drink. However, it's not that heretical since it's backed by sound research, it's just unpopular and potentially in violation of the 21st amendment. Whether something is heretical depends on the interviewer, and whether a heretical opinion will impact your chances of being hired also depends on the interviewer. That seems unfair and puts the candidate in an uncomfortable position.
    - flaque 7y ago
      > Whether something is heretical depends on the interviewer, and whether a heretical opinion will impact your chances of being hired also depends on the interviewer. I agree a lot with this. It's not crazy for someone in San Francisco to suggest we should ban or severely limit cars, but saying this to the rest of the US might be considered heretical. Similarly, saying that death is wrong and we should be focusing scientific achievements on life extension and immortality might be entirely normal in SF, but wildly heretical elsewhere. "Heretical _where_?" should always be the follow up question
yodsanklai 7y ago
Actually I was thinking about this recently (an unpopular opinion). I keep "fighting" with friends over "alternative medicine". I'm surprised at how many educated people (even with a scientific background) believe in alternative medicine and aren't aware of the many biases that mislead them...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
seanpquig 7y ago
> If someone answers the question with a mainstream view, it’s possible that they just aren’t self-aware enough to know a view is well-held. To be self-aware means you ask questions of yourself, such as “how many other people also have this view that I think I alone hold?” Is this really a characteristic of self awareness? Seems more like awareness of thoughts, trends, and opinions of others/society. It's almost like the ability to answer this question perfectly, requires intimate knowledge of widely held beliefs/trends which may in turn have the opposite effect of selecting for people hyper aware of trends and others' ideas rather than those more deeply immersed in their own individual work, ideas and experience.
lend000 7y ago
Interesting that, almost by definition, most of the top HN comments on this article are very critical of the idea. As if proving what the article claims: most people do not push the intellectual boundaries of their social environment. Not to say that some of the comments are completely unfounded -- for example, this question requires a special interviewer, too, who must be able to contain their biases against the potentially very unique (supposedly good) responses they will receive, which may be diametrically opposed to their own views.
a_t48 7y ago
I have no problem speaking up when I think something needs to be said (if anything, I have the opposite problem), but I would not be comfortable answering this question in an interview.
toohotatopic 7y ago
I guess it is not a coincidence that this is a perfect interview question: By construction people cannot cram 'right answers' from some preparation website because the answer would become repetitive. Applicants have to reveal their own original thought or at least prepare by talking to somebody with original ideas. At worst you get somebody who cannot come up with good ideas on his own but who at least can recognize good ideas.
Simulacra 7y ago
As an undergraduate in political science I declared that the United States invaded Iraq because of Iran. My foreign policy professor told me I was misguided and blinded by war no gering rhetoric. Eight years later I got my PhD on that same thesis.
mnm1 7y ago
No one who wants the job and isn't an idiot would answer this truthfully as most answers would be misunderstood and in many cases would lead one to not get the job. It's one of the stupidest interview questions in a sea of stupid interview questions, one that reveals absolutely nothing about whether a candidate would be good for the job. It reveals a lot of information unrelated to how the candidate will perform that can be used to discriminate against and not hire the candidate: aka a "cultural fit" reason to discriminate and not hire.
thimkerbell 7y ago
"What important truth do very few people agree with you on?" It's very hard to come up with a right answer, since if it's ostensibly unpopular, you won't know how many agree with you. (I have not read the article.)
friedxenon 7y ago
If you're going for a typical interview, you're asking to be a cog in a machine. So if you're someone with original ideas and conviction or an interviewer asking this question you're making a category error.
Caligula 7y ago
This is blog spam. He even quotes himself. Please flag this blog spam.
BenoitP 7y ago
Here's my truth very few people agree with me on: A mass of 1kg of lead actually weighs -in standard conditions- more than a mass of 1kg of feathers. So far, it has been 6 times I've had an argument with people over it.
- ncmncm 7y ago
  What, meaning if you weigh out equal amounts of feathers and lead, you end up with more feathers? Buoyancy?
  - BenoitP 7y ago
    Buoyancy: exactly! I'll admit that phrasing it shortly is sort of misleading, but it does still carry a precise meaning: we're talking of "a mass of 1kg" (in the gravitational pull sense) vs "weighs" (the act of measuring the resultant force at rest on a scale, which has to compensate for the gravitational pull as well as buoyancy). "standard conditions" generally means 1kPa, the density of lead is 11.34 g/cm^3, the density of keratin (which feathers are made of) is 1.32 g/cm^3, the density of air is 0.001275 g/cm^3; which give us a difference in Buoyancy amounting to: 0.85 g [1] Which is not that low a difference compared to 1kg. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=%281kg+%2F+%281.32+g%2Fcm%5E3%29+-+1kg+%2F+%2811.34+g%2Fcm%5E3%29%29+*+0.0012754+g%2Fcm%5E3+in+g&oq=%281kg+%2F+%281.32+g%2Fcm%5E3%29+-+1kg+%2F+%2811.34+g%2Fcm%5E3%29%29+*+0.0012754+g%2Fcm%5E3+in+g https://www.google.com/search?q=%281kg+%2F+%281.32+g%2Fcm%5E...
    - ncmncm 7y ago
      I have found Wolfram Alpha deeply disappointing on the topic of buoyancy.
aazaa 7y ago
> “what is a heretical view you have?” This is a better question to ask oneself with an open mind that to pose to a job candidate. No heretic is an island. The heretical idea stands in opposition to some convention or norm. Unless the interviewer is intimately familiar with the norm (and self-aware enough to know the difference between convention and heresy), s/he won't be capable of judging whether the response is indeed heretical. When asked to oneself, the question forces exploration of the idea itself and the norms you believe you stand in opposition to. You might even need to ask around to gauge how heretical your view really is. Maybe you'll give a talk or write an essay - or just post a response in a discussion thread in HN. However you explore the question, the answer might be surprising. At least I've been sometimes very surprised by ideas I thought were very odd not getting the reaction I thought they would.
timoth3y 7y ago
The general idea behind the question is brilliant, but I doubt its usefulness as an interview question. When I read that in his book, my first thought was how I would answer it in an interview, and I think the unstated subtext to the question is: "What important truth do very few people agree with you on that is big enough to feel important, but I will not feel threatened or offended by?” "What heretical views you have?" is a great question to ask a friend over a beer, but as an interview question, it's the liberal arts version of those horrid interview puzzles.
- beatgammit 7y ago
  Agreed. In an interview, I'm trying to present the best possible version of myself so I can make a favorable impression. I'll likely not share my non-mainstream religious, political, or socioeconomic views in a professional setting (I try to avoid such subjects at work since they're usually off topic and tend to ruffle feathers), and technical views are much more nuanced and difficult to come up with on the fly (e.g. an "original" view on code formatting). Once I know more about the company, I know what types of answers will be useful. There's only so much I can glean from the company website, and for larger companies, it's even less clear where I'd end up working. For example, a rant about how strict work hours will likely result in a poorer product (due to poor employee satisfaction) doesn't make sense in a company where being available for emergencies is more important than delivering features, but it does in an R&D role that's more creative and less results oriented. My input depends on the needs of the company, and I'm not going to try to force a solution that was designed for a very different company. So, I'm going to be more conservative in such situations, which isn't the outcome the interviewer expects. I much prefer situational questions, perhaps based on my prior experience. For example, maybe something like: > Give an example where your input changed the direction your team went on a project. Or alternatively, describe an instance where a team member changed your mind and lead to an improved end result. Ideally, this should be an instance where existing processes were ignored and ended in a better result. I think that gets at the heart of what the interviewer is looking for. If the candidate can at least recognize when a better solution presents itself, they're likely capable of thinking outside the box. Discussing the situation can help shed more light on it.
sings 7y ago
Either... Kiwi fruit is best savoured with the skin on, after having thoroughly washed it. ...or... Time is actually speeding up, which is why everyone feels like time speeds up as they get older. The only reason this is better than “what is your biggest weakness?” is that there is slightly more scope for creativity.
ncmncm 7y ago
I would rather ask, "What do you know that nobody else seems to know?"

83 points by vinnyglennon 7y ago

Ehhhhhhhh. Auren ran one of the shadiest companies in recent history (Rapleaf) and he's discussing Thiel, who in my opinion was completely in the wrong w/r/t Gawker and is incredibly thin skinned and petty for someone who talks about the things that he does. The core point is correct: you want (for lack of better phrasing) "out of the box" thinkers in your leadership roles, particularly in the early stages. But I would take either of those two as a model with the biggest grain of salt possible; you can be courageous and out of the box without being insanely unethical or a vampire-like dick, respectively.

prepend 7y ago
> who in my opinion was completely in the wrong w/r/t Gawker I have a different opinion for four reasons. I appreciate Thiel’s long term thinking and just the effectiveness of the plot. That’s rare and neat, I think. But I also think it’s right because Gawker was a plague on society with its gossipy, trash journalism. We are better off as a society without the type of articles that out people because editors don’t like them or don’t like their politics. Specifically, they were in the wrong with Hogan and what they did was heartless. Finally, Gawker died legally. No laws were broken. Thiel had beef, for whatever reason and he used the law. While I don’t think Gawker is anywhere near more useful and professional news outlets (eg, NYT or Post) I think if other newsmakers break the law in such a way, they should be treated exactly the same way.
- femiagbabiaka 7y ago
  Gawker reported on Weinstein at a time when other publications wouldn’t for fear of reprisal. We are not better off as a society when billionaires with histories of poor morality can arbitrarily destroy media companies. Get a grip.
  - _vertigo 7y ago
    Not that I agree or disagree, but he didn't say that, he said we're better off without Gawker, or rather, the type of articles that it published. There's a difference.
    - femiagbabiaka 7y ago
      We are not better off without Gawker.
      - _vertigo 7y ago
        Well, okay. Again, I'm not taking a position on this one, just saying that you two were arguing different points.
  - natalyarostova 7y ago
    Arbitrarily? Either you don’t know the history of this case, or you’re misusing this word.
  - ALittleLight 7y ago
    Thiel didn't destroy Gawker with a mercenary army. He financed a lawsuit which was found to be meritorious. This is not an "arbitrary" thing at all. Whatever Thiel's beliefs or motives, Gawker published a private sex tape for no legitimate reason. When a judge ruled they had to take it down, they disobeyed the injunction. As Thiel points out, one social problem that this exposes is that even a single digit millionaire like Hulk Hogan didn't have access to the legal system. Hogan should have been able to get the result himself, but needed a billionaire to finance him.
  - anonymousab 7y ago
    >Gawker reported on Weinstein at a time when other publications wouldn’t for fear of reprisal They also created, hosted and pushed a "celebrity stalker map" for the express purposes of stalking people. There is a laundry list of reasons to have no sympathy for Gawker, and enough for many people to have wanted to see some comeuppance. >We are not better off as a society when billionaires with histories of poor morality can arbitrarily destroy media companies. We are better off when a company that goes too far, legally, faces ramifications for their actions. Even if the cause for those ramifications was less than pure; The motivations of the person who caused the action are kind of irrelevant to the action and result that occurred. The worst part of this situation is not that Thiel funded someone else's lawsuit, but that access to justice required and requires that kind of funding. Not that Terry Bollea had his case handled without worry, but that everyone else does not.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  > Finally, Gawker died legally. No laws were broken. Thiel had beef, for whatever reason and he used the law. Not to mention the fact that Gawker probably didn't have to die but instead basically committed suicide. Going into court and saying that you'd happily publish a toddler's sex tape isn't exactly sound legal strategy.
  - bedhead 7y ago
    And Deadspin recently committed suicide too. All of these folks are just bad people. Gawker and all of its sister sites were/are stains on the world.
    - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
      Are you seriously making the case that the writers who quit Deadspin over issues of editorial freedom — not, to be clear, the freedom to publish salacious gossip, but to publish articles that weren't strictly sports-related, no matter how provably popular and critically acclaimed they were — were "just bad people" because they refused to sit down, shut up and get in line? Gawker certainly crossed a line they shouldn't have, and maybe that line was so egregious that they deserved to die and have their remains put through the shitshow that they've been through the last few years. But that's entirely orthogonal as to whether sites related to Gawker ever did good journalism. They did. They had some terrific writers — particularly at io9 under Charlie Jane Anders and Annalee Newitz (both now award-winning science fiction authors), but around the network you'd find Brian Lam, Jason Chen, Stephen Totilo, Gina Trapani, Erica Sadun, Sam Biddle, and yes, love him or hate him, Gawker founder Nick Denton himself was a pretty damn good writer. They published some terrific articles. And the world of online publications is a little dimmer with them effectively gone.
- kick 7y ago
  I personally agree with the 'idlewords view on Gawker. https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Apinboard%20gawker&src=typd https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Apinboard%20gawker&src=ty... They did call out that Clinton and Dershowitz went on the jet that Epstein used to let powerful men have sex with underage women in 2015, and that alone is worth quite a bit. Probably more than any slight against Thiel. Thiel being poked in a way that paints him as a hypocrite is constructive, all things considered. Seeing billionaires as "regular Joes" is something that probably needs to stop for the long-term viability of the American experiment. Thiel, a conservative who's been donating thousands a year to Republican politicians since at least 2000 (this is all public record; it's worth a glance if you're interested), who recognize the people in the sexual demographic that Thiel belongs to as degenerate, is in fact one of the people they hate. This is important for the public to know for a few reasons. An obvious reason, of course, is "Hey look, you don't matter at all to the types that have millions of dollars!" is an important thing for LGBT people who don't have that. Highlighting Thiel as a man who adheres to "Got mine" philosophy is really good, because it allows everyone else to know that once you get to a certain level of protection, solidarity doesn't really exist. Politics are war, and when you have a person regularly dropping $4,000,000 a year on political donations to causes that are directly harmful to you, it makes sense to combat them. I'm close to the same side as Thiel politically, but even I can't say that Gawker doing that was a bad thing. That Thiel doesn't believe in freedom of speech is ridiculous, given the views he claims to espouse. But if you see it for what it is (a billionaire wanting free speech for himself, but not caring whether it's a thing for others), it makes sense.

Pfhreak 7y ago

Is this really a good predictor? This seems like practically it would be used to not hire people on the basis of 'culture fit'. I can think of many answers to this question that could disclose a protected status, political or religious ideology, or some other belief that now you have to consider in the candidate. (What if someone says, "Software engineers should fight for unionization.") Do you really get a good signal on the three things the question is intended to find? (Whether people fear judgement, aren't introspective, etc.)

gav 7y ago
> Is this really a good predictor? It's a good predictor if you wanted to hire people that knew who Peter Thiel was. It's the sort of question that people answer better if it's not the first time they've heard it. A really good candidate might be able to push back and ask what population of people the interviewer meant by "few people". There's views that I have around technology that few people in the world (relativity) have, but are orthodox if you narrowed that group to just software developers.
ThrowawayR2 7y ago
> "I can think of many answers to this question that could disclose a protected status, political or religious ideology, or some other belief that now you have to consider in the candidate." Funny you should jump straight to those things. Given how opinionated we all are, I imagine most experienced software professionals would have at least one contrarian opinion about something technological in their profession. I can think of a few without even trying.
- Pfhreak 7y ago
  I'm a hiring manager, one of the things that's drilled into me during my trainings is to be conscious of what questions are off limits during hiring. :D

Causality1 7y ago

>It’s a great question because almost everyone cannot come up with an answer that most people they know do not agree with. I would argue it might be the case that people can't come up with an opinion they're willing to share with the interviewer. If you believe something truly taboo, like that children should be sexually active or a certain race or religion or nationality deserves to be exterminated you're not going to just tell someone because they asked.

empath75 7y ago

It’s a dumb question, because heretical is a meaningless term in the context of the tech industry. To the extent that it ‘works’ it’s probably going to screen for self-important assholes. Which, given that it’s a peter Thiel question...

monocasa 7y ago

I mean, he's also just an open fascist who wants to work with other fascists. > I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible… The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women—two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians—have rendered the notion of "capitalist democracy" into an oxymoron. https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio... Ie. women shouldn't have gotten the vote because democracy for other people reduces his freedom to put his boot on their neck. Edit: Would love a counter argument rather than or in addition to a drive by downvote. Because of course the guy who openly talks about how terrible giving women the vote was asks people about their heretical ideas in an interview. That doesn't mean it's something to emulate.

BurningFrog 7y ago
Feel free to hate both, but libertarians are very much not fascists.
- monocasa 7y ago
  He's literally saying that giving women the vote was a mistake. Are you saying that this is compatible with libertarian thought?
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    That's not what he's saying. He's just pointing out that women are less likely to vote for libertarian policies. Replace "women" with "Trump voters" if you like, pretty much the same idea - and yet, no one's actually saying that the "deplorables" should not get to vote.
    - monocasa 7y ago
      He's talking about the "extension of the franchise to women". That's giving them the vote. His literal thesis is "Freedom and Democracy aren't compatible anymore".

iainmerrick 7y ago

A comment on the format rather than the content: it’s weird how this article includes what look like pull-quotes, but are actually embedded tweets by the author saying the same stuff that’s in the article. I’ve seen that style used when quoting other people’s tweets, but exclusively quoting yourself that way just seems strange!

petetnt 7y ago
The dude recently compared[0] himself to MLK, Gandhi and the others for working more than 40 hours per week so somehow I am not that surprised. [0]: https://twitter.com/PenLlawen/status/1210874395734003713 https://twitter.com/PenLlawen/status/1210874395734003713
phoe-krk 7y ago
This tends to provide more context by means of twitter comments. You can click the tweet under a particular quotation and see the discussion that happened underneath it.
- iainmerrick 7y ago
  Why would I care what replies random Twitter users made? If you want to highlight a particular conversation thread, by all means, link to that (probably via one of the many Twitter thread collation apps).
  - phoe-krk 7y ago
    Some people enjoy reading such conversations. You may simply not be one of them; that's fine.
sings 7y ago
Yep this definitely comes across as a cheap way of getting more clicks/follows rather than actually being useful to the reader. This guys heretical belief seems to be that self-promotion isn’t tacky.

femiagbabiaka 7y ago

It’s somewhat impressive the degree to which an industry that thinks of itself as being so enlightened falls prey to cults of personality so often.

throwawaymath 7y ago
And also ironic, given the subject matter of this particular article (contrarianism as empowering idea generator). Once upon a time, similar thinkpieces extolled the virtues of asking candidates to introspect on their greatest weakness. How...original. What avant garde, thought provoking questions will people in a decade ask as a reaction to present interviewing trends? Actually I think that question is a candidate for its own answer, now that I think about it...this is like borrowing cocktail party discussion for interviewing.
Mr_Shiba 7y ago
Yep, borderline hollywood celebrity nonsense, pretty sad indeed
milofeynman 7y ago
Not a single original idea in the article. Just repackage ideas hoping for clicks. Well said.

willberman 7y ago

I generally like a lot of what Thiel says, but people need to be very careful about being heretical for the sake of being heretical. I find a lot of people (myself included) have a tendency to pretend some mainstream way of doing something is wrong for the sake of having some insight that everyone else missed. However, there is generally, at a minimum, some wisdom of the crowds.

sillysaurusx 7y ago

My own answer: "Most traditional graphics programmers are wasting their time. AI renderers will replace all the techniques we use today, not merely augment the techniques. A graphics engine in 20 years will look nothing like current codebases." I'm referring to cutting-edge engines. There will always be space for stylized renderers. But photorealism? All your BRDF knowledge might as well be raindrops in the wind. It's unfortunate that the most interesting ideas can't be voiced publicly. It's a good question. I don't think it's good for interviews, but it's a good way to meet interesting people.

djmips 7y ago
Rendering already has turned over several times. Graphics programmers from the past already 'wasted their time'. Techniques have been replaced. I don't think your main hypothesis is very heretical. AI will probably take a prominent role in all upcoming rendering tech.

euphemisms 7y ago

> "As a leader, you should cultivate an environment where employees feel safe to share heretical views, especially if they solve a problem or lead to a growth opportunity. And you can do the same in an interview process." James Damore would like a word with you.

robocat 7y ago

Another benefit is that the interviewer has a chance to learn a new uncommon truth. Perhaps something that can be invested in. I think Soros said he loved to find mistakes in his own thinking, especially if it was a mistake others were making, since he could then use that knowledge to invest.

genS3 7y ago

"A good answer is one that sparks a unique view of the world and shows the candidate doesn’t think like their peers. This signals that the candidate 1) thinks differently; 2) is open-minded, and 3) is brave enough to discuss an unpopular opinion." try answering an unpopular opinion in PC BS companies like google,twitter,fb and others and youll get blacklisted.

Avshalom 7y ago

This is just "what's you're biggest weakness" for people who think they're interesting.

ericb 7y ago
Exactly! According to the article, "most people think they are heretical, but are actually mainstream" -- that includes the interviewer! Any candidate smart enough to have heretical beliefs is probably also smart enough to know that the beliefs are heretical because they are unpopular and voicing those opinions to someone who, by the odds, most likely isn't heretical, but thinks they are, can only be a negative for your hiring prospects.
- wallace_f 7y ago
  >can only be a negative Your argument is noy exactly true. If the value of finding a similarly open-minded individual outweighs the low probability* of finding it, then it makes sense. Put another way if given a utility function with terms (utility of open minded individual) (probability of OMI) > 1 then it is rational.
  - ericb 7y ago
    I'll concede that, and also that my phrasing is off -- it should be "is most likely a negative." All that being the case, there's still a certain irony to this chapter in Thiel's book. Thiel thinks that thinking different on god or the existence of god is a terrible answer, even though it often means someone has a heretical belief vs. perhaps their parents and potentially the bulk of society. His justifications for why this is a bad answer are flimsy, and seemingly the only reason he thinks this is because he agrees with mainstream thinking. This proves the danger of answering the question--the spirit it is received, even in book form from the very person advocating it, is judgment of the answer and an underlying preference for mainstream thinking.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]

Nition 7y ago

> The Thiel question is a great one because it reveals that most people hold conventional opinions and call them “heretical.” Selecting a response that sounds "heretical" but is actually fairly mainstream sounds like exactly the sort of response you'd try to come up with in a job interview. In other news, the famous interview question "what would you say is your greatest weakness" reveals that most people's greatest weakness is actually not very bad, and could even be spun as a positive.

rytill 7y ago
That last one would make an excellent Onion article.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
ksdale 7y ago
I’m also not convinced it’s a useful interview question because of the issue you raise, but thinking your mainstream views are heretical extends far beyond job interviews. It seems like whenever I hear people talk about politics, they speak as though they’re persecuted lone wolves going against the current, but they tend to have opinions that something like half the country holds, which I would define as very mainstream. I also think this occurs with myths that have been “busted,” someone will go around for years thinking that everyone else is sheep for still believing in the myth, when the reality is everyone else read the same article and no one really believes the myth anymore. And then there are the countless posts on Reddit or Tumblr or Imgur or Facebook where someone dramatically makes a stand, admitting that they will be burned at the stake for their position, to the great applause of everyone watching.
- empath75 7y ago
  > It seems like whenever I hear people talk about politics, they speak as though they’re persecuted lone wolves going against the current, but they tend to have opinions that something like half the country holds, which I would define as very mainstream. Half the country and probably most of their social circle.

timkam 7y ago

First of all, is there any evidence that this question is predictive? Secondly, the article is celebrating this question (which certainly is creative and somewhat intriguing) in a way that seems to be weirdly inconsistent: you ask me about a heretical view I have. In favor of the question, let's assume that it's a view related to the industry/product/whatever I am supposed to work with. Now, if most people disagree with my view, how likely is it that you will agree? This assumes both you and I possess a secret truth. You, supposedly an influential business leader, want to keep this truth a secret, or fail to convince others of the truth. This just seems bogus. If I succeed at answering this question in a way you like, isn't it more likely that I make something up to cater to your inflated ego? If there's no evidence that this question works, my line of reasoning is just as good as the one provided in the article.

sillysaurusx 7y ago
Now, if most people disagree with my view, how likely is it that you will agree? I think this is the spot where your logic stopped working. The idea is that you don't care whether they agree. You'll listen to opposing arguments, of course, but the goal isn't to get them to agree. They're asking you because they're interested. Or at least, that's how it should work. It stops working when it becomes an interview question. The point is to see whether someone thinks originally. If you have opinions you're reluctant to share among peers without wording it carefully, and you've spent a lot of time thinking very carefully about the topic, then there's a pretty good chance you're an interesting person to know. EDIT: Another way to phrase it: If you give an answer that you truly believe and that you've thought carefully about for a long time, and they disagree loudly and immediately, then there are two possibilities: Either they have given the topic more thought than you (which is entirely possible), or they are less open-minded than they think they are. Both outcomes give useful information to you.
- throwawaymath 7y ago
  > If you have opinions you're reluctant to share among peers without wording it carefully, and you've spent a lot of time thinking very carefully about the topic, then there's a pretty good chance you're an interesting person to know. Though we won't be able to make good on the bet, I would confidently wager a supermajority of people who fit that criteria are not particularly interesting to you, or any given individual for that matter. In my experience, most people who spend a long time thinking about their controversial beliefs aren't especially insightful or interesting to those who disagree with them. For low hanging fruit we can just look at politics. But even beyond that, the universe of controversial ideas is so vast that it's unlikely a person's given muse will be compelling or insightful to other people.

mlthoughts2018 7y ago

A lot of my peers are brilliant people and they know more than I do about a wide range of topics. I want to copy their beliefs a lot of the time when I don’t have special evidence to have my own view. This post’s advice is extremely bad because it forces some level of optimizing for uniqueness (very ironic this is related to Thiel’s question too, since it plays right into Girard-style mimetic fighting to differentiate one’s self from otherwise highly similar peers). But uniqueness is not valuable in a vacuum. You actually need the unusual views to be correct and valuable in some way. Merely creating some spark of uniqueness is pretty useless and often harmful. If someone said to me that inside their field of experience (life, or professional or otherwise), they have sufficient reason to have an unusual belief, but for everything else they either copy another expert they trust or else default to conventional wisdom, that would impress me. If someone goes out of their way to hold unusual beliefs in areas where there is no reason to believe their judgement, that’s a sign of reckless beliefs and immature virtue signaling.

abbadadda 7y ago

Is it just me or is this post riddled with grammatical or spelling errors? Or just omission of words or backwards logic: > One learns quickly in life that it is never fun to be unpopular. Everyone has felt it at some point in their life. Most people never want to feel it again and so they go against the grain. Why would most people go against the grain if they never wanted to feel unpopular again?

motohagiography 7y ago

If Thiel asked me these I'd answer, but some rando recruiter or HR person, I'd just answer how much I admired Nelson Mandela, because that's the answer to every HR question anyway.

CapmCrackaWaka 7y ago

Ehhhh the responses given by this question, in my opinion, would be heavily driven by the interviewee answering in a way they think the interviewer wants to hear. Most people are self aware enough that they are not going to be spewing out their _truly_ controversial views on politics/religion/whatever to this person they barely know. You cannot say that nobody holds controversial views when the views discussed come from job interviews, of all places...

ElDji 7y ago

Perfect use case for Carl Sagan's baloney detection kit.

tehjoker 7y ago

I wonder if many of these "think differently" questions are less about finding a brilliant theorist and more about finding people who can cope with social condemnation that comes with operating the gears of capital and have the capacity to produce rationales that create enough space to operate without being shut down. After all, few big innovations come from business, most come from research. Thiel is looking for capable managers of capital. This after all explains Theil's own career of holding opinions that are not brilliant, but are socially destructive while simultaneously making him rich. He think the female vote was a mistake, he founded a deep state company that assists in intelligence gathering for the military-industrial complex and the NSA. He killed a newspaper.... and so on. He has been called a neo-feudalist.

cvhashim 7y ago
He also has a doomsday bunker in NZ

pkilgore 7y ago

This post assumes that this question is predictive, which is something I'd much rather see established first...

twelve40 7y ago
It doesn't just assume that, it throws a massive celebration party for that question without any basis for it whatsoever. Other than some self-absorbed opinions.

khendron 7y ago

If I answer "That's a really dumb question!" am I being heretical or conventional?

cagenut 7y ago

on a related note, I find very few things more predictive in how much I'm going to like a person than the side they take in thiel v gawker.

flaque 7y ago

Having an unpopular opinion that's also backed up well is rare in the information age. If a view has evidence to support it, that evidence is available to everyone and there will undoubtedly be communities that support it. Folks with heretical views tend to either have rare knowledge or to be wrong.

apta 7y ago
Having some communities support it does not contradict that it can still be an unpopular opinion. For example, consuming alcohol is a socially acceptable practice in practically all Western nations. There are studies showing the strong correlation between alcohol consumption and crimes, rape, homicides, etc. yet people are still willing to continue the practice because "it's fun".
- beatgammit 7y ago
  So, would this view then be considered "heretical"? > Alcohol should be more strictly controlled than marijuana because it has greater potential for harm. It's true and bucks the mainstream, but it's highly unpopular and will likely annoy the interviewer if they like to drink. However, it's not that heretical since it's backed by sound research, it's just unpopular and potentially in violation of the 21st amendment. Whether something is heretical depends on the interviewer, and whether a heretical opinion will impact your chances of being hired also depends on the interviewer. That seems unfair and puts the candidate in an uncomfortable position.
  - flaque 7y ago
    > Whether something is heretical depends on the interviewer, and whether a heretical opinion will impact your chances of being hired also depends on the interviewer. I agree a lot with this. It's not crazy for someone in San Francisco to suggest we should ban or severely limit cars, but saying this to the rest of the US might be considered heretical. Similarly, saying that death is wrong and we should be focusing scientific achievements on life extension and immortality might be entirely normal in SF, but wildly heretical elsewhere. "Heretical _where_?" should always be the follow up question

yodsanklai 7y ago

Actually I was thinking about this recently (an unpopular opinion). I keep "fighting" with friends over "alternative medicine". I'm surprised at how many educated people (even with a scientific background) believe in alternative medicine and aren't aware of the many biases that mislead them...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

seanpquig 7y ago

> If someone answers the question with a mainstream view, it’s possible that they just aren’t self-aware enough to know a view is well-held. To be self-aware means you ask questions of yourself, such as “how many other people also have this view that I think I alone hold?” Is this really a characteristic of self awareness? Seems more like awareness of thoughts, trends, and opinions of others/society. It's almost like the ability to answer this question perfectly, requires intimate knowledge of widely held beliefs/trends which may in turn have the opposite effect of selecting for people hyper aware of trends and others' ideas rather than those more deeply immersed in their own individual work, ideas and experience.

lend000 7y ago

Interesting that, almost by definition, most of the top HN comments on this article are very critical of the idea. As if proving what the article claims: most people do not push the intellectual boundaries of their social environment. Not to say that some of the comments are completely unfounded -- for example, this question requires a special interviewer, too, who must be able to contain their biases against the potentially very unique (supposedly good) responses they will receive, which may be diametrically opposed to their own views.

a_t48 7y ago

I have no problem speaking up when I think something needs to be said (if anything, I have the opposite problem), but I would not be comfortable answering this question in an interview.

toohotatopic 7y ago

I guess it is not a coincidence that this is a perfect interview question: By construction people cannot cram 'right answers' from some preparation website because the answer would become repetitive. Applicants have to reveal their own original thought or at least prepare by talking to somebody with original ideas. At worst you get somebody who cannot come up with good ideas on his own but who at least can recognize good ideas.

Simulacra 7y ago

As an undergraduate in political science I declared that the United States invaded Iraq because of Iran. My foreign policy professor told me I was misguided and blinded by war no gering rhetoric. Eight years later I got my PhD on that same thesis.

mnm1 7y ago

No one who wants the job and isn't an idiot would answer this truthfully as most answers would be misunderstood and in many cases would lead one to not get the job. It's one of the stupidest interview questions in a sea of stupid interview questions, one that reveals absolutely nothing about whether a candidate would be good for the job. It reveals a lot of information unrelated to how the candidate will perform that can be used to discriminate against and not hire the candidate: aka a "cultural fit" reason to discriminate and not hire.

thimkerbell 7y ago

"What important truth do very few people agree with you on?" It's very hard to come up with a right answer, since if it's ostensibly unpopular, you won't know how many agree with you. (I have not read the article.)

friedxenon 7y ago

If you're going for a typical interview, you're asking to be a cog in a machine. So if you're someone with original ideas and conviction or an interviewer asking this question you're making a category error.

Caligula 7y ago

This is blog spam. He even quotes himself. Please flag this blog spam.

BenoitP 7y ago

Here's my truth very few people agree with me on: A mass of 1kg of lead actually weighs -in standard conditions- more than a mass of 1kg of feathers. So far, it has been 6 times I've had an argument with people over it.

ncmncm 7y ago
What, meaning if you weigh out equal amounts of feathers and lead, you end up with more feathers? Buoyancy?
- BenoitP 7y ago
  Buoyancy: exactly! I'll admit that phrasing it shortly is sort of misleading, but it does still carry a precise meaning: we're talking of "a mass of 1kg" (in the gravitational pull sense) vs "weighs" (the act of measuring the resultant force at rest on a scale, which has to compensate for the gravitational pull as well as buoyancy). "standard conditions" generally means 1kPa, the density of lead is 11.34 g/cm^3, the density of keratin (which feathers are made of) is 1.32 g/cm^3, the density of air is 0.001275 g/cm^3; which give us a difference in Buoyancy amounting to: 0.85 g [1] Which is not that low a difference compared to 1kg. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=%281kg+%2F+%281.32+g%2Fcm%5E3%29+-+1kg+%2F+%2811.34+g%2Fcm%5E3%29%29+*+0.0012754+g%2Fcm%5E3+in+g&oq=%281kg+%2F+%281.32+g%2Fcm%5E3%29+-+1kg+%2F+%2811.34+g%2Fcm%5E3%29%29+*+0.0012754+g%2Fcm%5E3+in+g https://www.google.com/search?q=%281kg+%2F+%281.32+g%2Fcm%5E...
  - ncmncm 7y ago
    I have found Wolfram Alpha deeply disappointing on the topic of buoyancy.

aazaa 7y ago

> “what is a heretical view you have?” This is a better question to ask oneself with an open mind that to pose to a job candidate. No heretic is an island. The heretical idea stands in opposition to some convention or norm. Unless the interviewer is intimately familiar with the norm (and self-aware enough to know the difference between convention and heresy), s/he won't be capable of judging whether the response is indeed heretical. When asked to oneself, the question forces exploration of the idea itself and the norms you believe you stand in opposition to. You might even need to ask around to gauge how heretical your view really is. Maybe you'll give a talk or write an essay - or just post a response in a discussion thread in HN. However you explore the question, the answer might be surprising. At least I've been sometimes very surprised by ideas I thought were very odd not getting the reaction I thought they would.

timoth3y 7y ago

The general idea behind the question is brilliant, but I doubt its usefulness as an interview question. When I read that in his book, my first thought was how I would answer it in an interview, and I think the unstated subtext to the question is: "What important truth do very few people agree with you on that is big enough to feel important, but I will not feel threatened or offended by?” "What heretical views you have?" is a great question to ask a friend over a beer, but as an interview question, it's the liberal arts version of those horrid interview puzzles.

beatgammit 7y ago
Agreed. In an interview, I'm trying to present the best possible version of myself so I can make a favorable impression. I'll likely not share my non-mainstream religious, political, or socioeconomic views in a professional setting (I try to avoid such subjects at work since they're usually off topic and tend to ruffle feathers), and technical views are much more nuanced and difficult to come up with on the fly (e.g. an "original" view on code formatting). Once I know more about the company, I know what types of answers will be useful. There's only so much I can glean from the company website, and for larger companies, it's even less clear where I'd end up working. For example, a rant about how strict work hours will likely result in a poorer product (due to poor employee satisfaction) doesn't make sense in a company where being available for emergencies is more important than delivering features, but it does in an R&D role that's more creative and less results oriented. My input depends on the needs of the company, and I'm not going to try to force a solution that was designed for a very different company. So, I'm going to be more conservative in such situations, which isn't the outcome the interviewer expects. I much prefer situational questions, perhaps based on my prior experience. For example, maybe something like: > Give an example where your input changed the direction your team went on a project. Or alternatively, describe an instance where a team member changed your mind and lead to an improved end result. Ideally, this should be an instance where existing processes were ignored and ended in a better result. I think that gets at the heart of what the interviewer is looking for. If the candidate can at least recognize when a better solution presents itself, they're likely capable of thinking outside the box. Discussing the situation can help shed more light on it.

sings 7y ago

Either... Kiwi fruit is best savoured with the skin on, after having thoroughly washed it. ...or... Time is actually speeding up, which is why everyone feels like time speeds up as they get older. The only reason this is better than “what is your biggest weakness?” is that there is slightly more scope for creativity.

ncmncm 7y ago

I would rather ask, "What do you know that nobody else seems to know?"