How To Start A Startup | Peter Thiel

By Jordan

In This Article:
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    Peter Thiel is an entrepreneur and investor. He cofounded PayPal, led it as CEO, and took it public; he made the first outside investment in Facebook, where he serves as a director; and he cofounded Palantir Technologies, where he serves as chairman. He has recently released a pre-recorded video that focuses on what makes a business valuable and how to successfully expand your startup.

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    In This Talk, You’ll Learn About:

    • What specifically makes a business valuable to a customer
    • How advertising is used online and globally to capture audiences
    • The story of Paypal and how it expanded to become the brand it is today
    • The marginal costs of software
    • Technological progress and innovation over the years

    Episode Notes:

    • 00:03 Introduction and welcome of Peter Thiel.
    • 00:56 Capturing/creating value – what makes a business valuable.
    • 03:43 Pros and cons to the world of perfect competition.
    • 5:00 Two kinds of businesses in this world – perfectly competitive, and monopolies.
    • 06:45 Lies people tell about their businesses and how they work.
    • 7:55 Examples of how the lies work in practice.
    • 9:30 Is the intersection valuable – is it real, does it make sense?
    • 10:19 The Search market – the opposite lie.
    • 11:04 The advertising market – Online advertising, US advertising, and global advertising.
    • 11:30 Technology market – competition between cars, phones, social network.
    • 12:38 The evidence of the narrow markets in the tech industry.
    • 13:27 How to build a monopoly. Right size – start small and monopolize.
    • 15:02 Starting small and expanding – the PayPal story.
    • 18:44 Characteristics of monopoly businesses – proprietary technology, network effects. economies of scale branding.
    • 19:58 Characteristic of a monopoly technology company – PayPal and Amazon. comparison.
    • 21:36 Economies of scale – high fixed costs, low marginal costs, and branding.
    • 25:20 Time dimension to the characteristics.
    • 27:12 Value of the future – the last mover advantage.
    • 27:54 History of innovation – two slightly directions with this monopoly versus competition idea.
    • 28:27 Technological innovation – technological progress over the years.
    • 29:08 Valuable innovations – lack of reward for inventors.
    • 32:00 Vertically integrated complex monopolies.
    • 34:21 Software and economies of scale, low marginal costs.
    • 37:02 Psychology and competition – competition is for loser’s idea.
    • 38:1 Mimetic preferences – human nature and problematic behavior.
    • 38:36 Competitions as validation – does the intensity of competition make sense.
    • 42:23 Question and Answer session.

    Recommended Book

    Zero to One by Peter Thiel

    Check out the Silicon Valley Investors Club (SVIC) Library for more great reads.

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