I was listening to this interview with Peter Thiel while in the gym yesterday (Yes, I like to listen to podcasts, interviews and John Oliver while sweating it out! Weirdo me). There are two points that stood out for me.
A bit of context, Peter Thiel was the founder of Paypal and recruited what would be known as the Paypal Mafia, a group of individuals who would found successful startups. Peter is known for being a wildly successful entrepreneur, investor and contrarian thinker who challenges assumptions and established thinking.
He didn’t think Facebook would be that big
Peter was one of the first investors in Facebook when the company was at $5 million valuation. He said in the interview (around minute 7:20) that he didn’t think it would be as big as it eventually became. It would be worth his investment if Facebook just dominated the college student market. We all know how it turned out.
I sometimes beat myself up a little bit for not seeing far ahead in terms of companies that I analyzed or missed. But if the great Warren Buffett missed Amazon, Google and for many years, Apple (he is now one of the biggest shareholders of Apple) and if Peter Thiel couldn’t figure out Facebook’s eventual great future, then I guess it’s OK for any of us to be…human.
First meeting with Mark Zuckerberg
Peter Thiel talked about the first meeting with Mark around minute 4:20. He recalled that Mark went to the meeting with Sean Parker and Sean did most of the talking. Having watched a few of Mark’s interviews and speeches, he doesn’t appear to me as an exceptional salesman. Yet, people often claim that if you don’t have sales skill, you can’t be an entrepreneur. While it may be true in most cases, it’s not definitive. Mark and Facebook still getting the money without doing most of the talking was the proof of that.
Point is that I increasingly believe that every advice is contextual. Most of the time, there is barely one-size-fits-all or hard-and-fast advice. What works for one person may not work for others. One piece of advice is like a tool in your arsenal. One tool cannot do everything. It serves only a specific purpose in a certain set of scenarios. Constant learning gathers many tools at your disposal and learning what tool to use in a scenario is probably what makes a person succeed.
Minh Quang Duong 