One of the consequences of thinking for yourself is that you’re often going to find that the majority of other people disagree with you. So you’re always going

One of the consequences of thinking for yourself is that you’re often going to find that the majority of other people disagree with you. So you’re always going to be having disagreements where it’s an unfair fight; you’re outnumbered and easy to ignore. It’s exhausting, and people generally cope in two ways: keep their thoughts private, which looks like conformity from the outside, or find like minded people, which puts them back in the majority, arguably making them a conformist again. Either way something feels off about claiming oneself to be a consistent nonconformist. Edit: the other aspect of this to consider is the power relationships involved. If you’re the boss you probably feel free to express your opinions to anyone of equal or lower status: employees and other founders. But if you’re the employee, doing so to the boss might involve personal risk. So for pg to paint his employees as conformists leaves a bad taste in the mouth.