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Thiel is playing fast and loose with the definition of profit here. While it's true that "economic profit" will go to zero under perfect competition, that onl

by bjt 12y ago

Thiel is playing fast and loose with the definition of profit here. While it's true that "economic profit" will go to zero under perfect competition, that only means that the company's accounting profit is the same as the discount rate in the economy generally. It doesn't mean that there's zero accounting profit on the company's books. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/economicprofit.asp http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/economicprofit.asp

tim333 12y ago
He's also playing fast and loose with the definition of monopoly. Oxford dictionary: Monopoly - 1) The exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service. There is no way Google is a monopoly by that definition. Bing or any other company can and do compete. Google dominates because they are better but that is a very different thing.
- anon808 12y ago
  Maybe you could say that google has a monopoly on high quality/relevant search results?
  - marknadal 12y ago
    Again, you are mistaking "high quality" with consumer's "differing tastes". See my reply to your In-N-Out comment.
pdonis 12y ago
It also doesn't mean that nobody working for the company is making money. The workers' salaries aren't counted as "profits" (including salaries that the owners pay themselves). Thiel says at one point that a business that has to compete can probably only pay its workers minimum wage, but that depends on the market the business is competing in. Intel is in a competitive market for CPUs, but they don't pay their employees minimum wage.