I don't think Thiel is arguing that his investments / companies are exceptions here. He is also not arguing that 'innovation doesn't occur at all'. He is arguin

I don't think Thiel is arguing that his investments / companies are exceptions here. He is also not arguing that 'innovation doesn't occur at all'. He is arguing that innovation (while still very profitable for the founders and investors) does not necessarily imply societal gains in wellbeing. So today's innovations are not materially improving our quality of life in the way that the discovery of penicillin did. Twitter is fun and can be useful, but life might be much 'better' if instead we had access to cheap and fast jet packs (for example).