When talking about Google Thiel contrasts it with Amazon. Amazon takes all of their money every year and tries to build new stuff with it or invests in improvin

When talking about Google Thiel contrasts it with Amazon. Amazon takes all of their money every year and tries to build new stuff with it or invests in improving their stuff. Google, by contrast, just has a large and growing pile of money. In this sense, Google isn't innovating, they are just cashing in on their search/ads monopoly. This is why Thiel says investing in Google is a bet against search innovation. True search innovation would come from some startup that destroys Google. If you invest in Google you think that's not going to happen, hence you're being against it so you can keep extracting your rent. I think Thiel is a very interesting guy and is maligned unfairly, although I haven't read the book this article is about. Regarding Facebook, to me it seems pretty similar to how it's been for a while. It has pros and cons but I don't think the balance has changed in the last five or ten years.