10 ms·

This podcast "The Peter Thiel Paradox" [1] explained a lot about the mystery of Peter Thiel to me. Turns out that there is less than meets the eye but he does h

• beebmam 5y ago
  Why do people with this much wealth want even more wealth for themselves? I've never understood this.
  • yumraj 5y ago
    People with this much wealth start competing to up their position in the world's richest ranking. And, when you're #1 in the ranking you work hard to keep that ranking .. and so on and on .. Me, I would just retire if I had a fraction of that, or so I think since I'm nowhere there ..
  • davidw 5y ago
    Perhaps part of getting 'this much wealth' is a desire for more, more, more that doesn't seem to be something they can turn off? I have enjoyed seeing PG just sort of fade into the background of YC and enjoy his kids (his twitter feed). He seems to have done well by doing well and seems fairly satisfied with all of it.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • nodesocket 5y ago
    It's not about wealth once you reach a certain level. That's a simple and incorrect way of thinking about it. It's about legacy. Wealth is freedom and power to make change in society, politics, and the world that governments frankly are to ineffective, don't have the stomach, or intentionally choose not to change.
  • plorkyeran 5y ago
    You don't become Peter Thiel rich if money is a means to an end rather than an end in itself for you.
  • ironman1478 5y ago
    I imagine its fun for them. I personally cannot relate to this either, but you could apply this question to so many things. Like why would a world record sprinter want to run faster? I imagine with that reframing makes it more relatable.
  • joelbondurant1 5y ago
  • rodgerd 5y ago
    It's power. A guy who thinks that the 19th Amendment was a mistake doesn't care about more money, he cares about winding back the clock.
  • dkjaudyeqooe 5y ago
    At some point net worth becomes self worth for these people.
  • zem 5y ago
    hoarder mentality
  • paxys 5y ago
    Is being the 50th best basketball player on the planet good enough? Why do athletes continue to dedicate their lives in the hopes of being #1? Once your basic needs are met and you have a comfortable standard of living, everything else is a game, and people like to win. Why does anyone need a fancy car? Why does anyone need to compete with their neighbors and coworkers? Why does a billionaire need a superyacht when an adequately sized one will do? This is simply how some (or maybe even most) people are wired.
    • gameswithgo 5y ago
      It is game with millions of human lives being destroyed as a consequence at times.
      • okaramian 5y ago
        If you don't like the game, you should probably vote for politicians that change the rules. There isn't a real bound on wealth within the system we're in, until that changes this is reality and expecting people who play it to be inherently moral is naive. Note that Im not stating a judgement either way, just pointing out how the system currently works.
        • acomar 5y ago
          as pointed out in the parent comment that started this chain, politicians are captured by the same assholes who benefit from the system, as structured. if you change the politicians, they either buy or destroy their replacements. so if the system must change, what is to be done?
          • okaramian 5y ago
            On a practical level, this may or may not be true depending on the politician. I haven't seen an actual push for "taxing the super rich" go through. Sanders ran on that and lost. Reality at the moment is that at the moment if what you said is true it wouldn't matter because Americans don't care.
  • api 5y ago
    Same thing that makes people grind eternally in MMORPGs to max out a character.
  • emilsedgh 5y ago
    Ok well I'm not there really so I have no idea what I'm talking about but I'm guessing, probably by the time you get "this much wealth", this is the only game you can play, and it's fun, so you continue playing.
    • arvinsim 5y ago
      Maybe people who have everything at the top are afflicted with chronic boredom and playing the "game" is the only way to assuage it.
  • stuaxo 5y ago
    "number go up", they are obsessed with a high score and having more than others playing the same game. It would be sad if it were just that, but the fallout effects so many. I like the idea someone had that beyond a certain point you get a big party to say you won capitalism then the rest of the money you earn goes back into society.
    • pirate787 5y ago
      It is a worthy feature of the system that the winners get to direct the resources. Musk used his winnings to found SpaceX and Tesla and other moonshot companies. The alternative is to redistribute everything to people who have proven only that they mismanage resources.
      • arvinsim 5y ago
        Trickle down economics doesn't work.
      • JaimeThompson 5y ago
        Musk also got a considerable amount of government assistance, assistance that he now says others shouldn't get. I consider such a position to be rather strange.
      • InitialLastName 5y ago
        The two companies you named exist and are profitable entirely because Musk was able to drive government spending in his direction (launch contracts and subsidies, respectively).
  • jonathankoren 5y ago
    Points. It’s just about bragging rights. There’s nothing to it more than that. It’s literally just hoarding like dragon.
  • Consultant32452 5y ago
    If you're poor it tends to look like "How many houses could a person want?" If you're rich, it looks like "Everyone else, especially governments, sucks at allocating resources. I will do a better job." And here's the kicker, being extremely wealthy is the result of being good at the skill of resource allocation.
    • webmaven 5y ago
      > And here's the kicker, being extremely wealthy is the result of being good at the skill of resource allocation. If you add skills such as 'externalizing costs', and 'diverting resources', sure, I'll buy what you're selling.
  • ComradePhil 5y ago
    I don't think Peter Thiel is in it for the money, not anymore anyway. He is fairly straightforward and has talked about his motivations in various long-form interviews over the years. In my observation, his actions are aligned with his motivations that he has expressed. Partisan media assigns fabricated evil motivations to explain his actions, like they do with everyone who they view as not on their side. People who get their idea of him from these sources have distorted view of him.
    • dnissley 5y ago
      IIRC he sold most of his stake in 2012 after the IPO. He would be far richer today if he had just let his investment in Meta ride, even with the recent fall. It seems clear he's not in it for the money.
      • adventured 5y ago
        > He would be far richer today if he had just let his investment in Meta ride You mean if he had had a crystal ball, which absolutely nobody on the planet possesses. Hyper concentrating your wealth in a highly risky investment, is not a good investment strategy. In the absence of a crystal ball, he made a very reasonable choice to cash the Facebook position out given his exposure to numerous other high-risk tech-related positions. Bill Gates would be richer if he had never sold a share of Microsoft, and it would have similarly been a really bad approach to personal wealth management. That doesn't mean Gates wasn't interested in the money (for his goals, the more money the better), it means he was acting rationally, prudent, in diversifying.
        • r00fus 5y ago
          > You mean if he had had a crystal ball Amusingly isn't that what a Palantir actually is?
    • JaimeThompson 5y ago
      I would consider it evil to say that women shouldn't vote.
  • TuringNYC 5y ago
    In the case of Peter Thiel, the Koch family, and Robert Mercer, it is quite clear that the end goal is no longer wealth, but reshaping politics, geo-political power, and thought for multiple generations.
    • golemotron 5y ago
      Wow. No one on the left does that?
      • rr808 5y ago
        here are some names that do more than just donate cash. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/08/most-influential-democratic-donors-2020-elections.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/08/most-influential-dem...
        • r00fus 5y ago
          I really doubt you could call any of these billionaires "left".
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      • xxpor 5y ago
        Not to the same extent, simply because the raison d'etre of the left is to (at the extreme end) eliminate those types of people in the first place. Why isn't there a OANN of the left? Sure the MSM has a mainstream liberal bias, but there's hardly any Big Left (as in full on communist) media, at least in the English speaking world. There's a multitude of reasons, but I believe a big part of it is there simply isn't funding for that sort of thing.
        • zozbot234 5y ago
          Because OANN true believers are the kind of people who watch TV, and their closest equivalents on the left do not. The preferred media can differ.
  • FredPret 5y ago
    "When you've helped 100 little old ladies cross the road, why bother with number 101?" "When you've done so much useful work, why would you ever want to do any more?" "If you have so many friends, why would you ever be nice to somebody new?" "You love your family so much, why not stop now?" "Michael Phelps already has a gold medal, why does he keep swimming?"
    • UncleMeat 5y ago
      Helping a little old lady cross the road is improving the world in some manner. Acquiring bigger numbers in a bank account... not so much.
      • FredPret 5y ago
        If you subscribe to the pre-modern idea that there is a limited overall amount of wealth, right. But if you fast forward to the modern age, you’ll find that almost all work creates new wealth.
        • UncleMeat 5y ago
          Even if building your wealth didn't take it from somebody else, it still hadn't improved society.
          • FredPret 5y ago
            True. Tabacco companies exist. But generally for someone to hand over money it strictly has to improve their life in a disproportionate way.
            • UncleMeat 5y ago
              Two of the largest companies in the world are advertising companies. I don’t see such a strong correlation between improving the world and making money. To me, tobacco companies aren’t the exception.
  • sometimeshuman 5y ago
    It could be he feels passionate about his ventures and just wants them to be as successful as possible. The money is just a consequence. Personally it is harder to understand that upper middle manager who works on something they aren't passionate about, who isn't a co-founder, and yet keeps committing more and more of their life and ambition to the company.
  • lariati 5y ago
    I mean usually throughout history at some level of wealth people want some kind of political type of glory. If not that then some kind of patronage of the arts. The problem with leisure is pretty constant really once you don't have to work. You can only party all the time for so long before your addictions catch up with you. It is like the delusional of retiring to the beach to drink wine all day. Maybe fun for a few weeks but 6 months? You will be in bad shape rather quick.
  • koonsolo 5y ago
    You could say that when you have that much wealth, you can retire and live the good life. But it's true that these people keep going. Like Elon could have retired at any stage when he sold a company, but instead invested it in a new one. You know, spend time with family and friends. Instead he's running multiple companies. My theory is that this is exactly the reason why they are so wealthy, and the rest of us are not.
  • coldtea 5y ago
    The poor and the aspirational class works for the wealth. The wealthy work for power and control.
• waffle_maniac 5y ago
  There was a comment in a thread on HN a while ago by someone that interviewed with Thiel's hedge fund. Apparently the fund lost a lot of money and Thiel was directing the trading decisions. Other investors pulled their money and it was mostly Thiel's money in the fund going forward.
  • leto_ii 5y ago
    Wasn't Eric Weinstein also involved with that hedge fund? Or am I mixing things up?
    • m-ee 5y ago
      Possibly. Thiel has Clarium, “Thiel Capital” and “Thiel Macro” associated with his name. Weinstein was a managing director at Thiel Capital. I interviewed with Thiel Macro years ago when I got the story of the investors pulling out and the fund being primarily Thiel’s money from my interviewer. Not sure which if any of these are the same corporate entity.
  • m-ee 5y ago
    That was maybe me? If not someone else had the exact same experience. Was an odd interview, took place at a mostly empty office building in the presidio. Afterwards I was wandering around in the fog trying to get a cell signal to call an Uber which added to the ghost town feeling.
  • nbardy 5y ago
    My understanding is that Thiel's public fund often takes loss because he is hedging other financial risk he is taking.(e.g. holding palantir after IPO, large VC investments in industries that may turn out to be based on immature research)
    • Obi_Juan_Kenobi 5y ago
      Hahaha you don't believe that, do you?
• weneedctrl 5y ago
  > he does have a specific talent for manipulating the political systems and government coffers to enrich himself That gave me Epstein-verse vibes.
  • aksss 5y ago
    Only that Epstein was probably more a tool of the political systems and governments than they were tools of his. Symbiotic, I guess, but only one person got suicided in a prison cell while the cameras happened to be offline the guards inattentive.
• clairity 5y ago
  thiel isn't that talented or smart, but he did get hella lucky, and that's a sore point for him. so he's used his paypal riches on an extended PR campaign to make everyone believe he's something more than he is. literally every quote and quip i've heard from him is recycled directly from elsewhere, rather than being even a semi-original notion, but he passes it off as wisdom from on high. he wants more than just respect; he wants to be worshipped. if i ever met him, i'd tell him to just go the scientology route and found another fake religion already. he could even fashion himself up as the new new jesus.
  • kelp 5y ago
    He’s actually very Christian and I’m told attends services every week. I’m not sure what denomination though.
    • clairity 5y ago
      i suspect a number of narcissistic christians secretly wonder if they're actually the second coming. it wouldn't surprise me if thiel were in that group.
      • tomjakubowski 5y ago
        Now I'm curious: do the scriptures say when Jesus became self-aware, that he was (the son of) God?
        • clairity 5y ago
          from what (little) i remember, he was pretty self-aware in all of the bible that i read growing up. i'd guess a supreme being who wasn't really "born" would always have had self-awareness.
          • tomjakubowski 5y ago
            He's also human, and most of us do have to develop self-identity as children. That part of his life is mostly omitted from scripture though, as I recall. edit: Googled and remembered there's the episode where he goes wandering off from his parents, they find him in the temple, and he asks why they'd think he would be anywhere else but in his Father's (God's) house. So, well aware at least as a twelve year old. Luke 2:41-59