13 Quotes That Show Why Libertarian Tech Billionaire Peter Thiel Is A Scary Genius
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On living: "Your mind is software. Program it. Your body is a shell. Change it. Death is a disease. Cure it. Extinction is approaching. Fight it."
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On higher education: "University administrators are the equivalent of subprime mortgage brokers selling you a story that you should go into debt massively, that it's not a consumption decision, it's an investment decision. Actually, no, it's a bad consumption decision. Most colleges are four-year parties."
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On responses to his "20 Under 20" Thiel Foundation drop-outs: "Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States. To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It’s like telling the world there’s no Santa Claus."
On libertarianism: "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible."
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On the future: "Yes, a robotics revolution would basically have the effect of people losing their jobs, as you need fewer workers to do the same things, but it would have the benefit of freeing people up to do many other things."
On ideas: "There are still many large white spaces on the map of human knowledge. You can go discover them. So do it. Get out there and fill in the blank spaces. Every single moment is a possibility to go to these new places and explore them."
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On progress: "People don't want to believe that technology is broken. Pharmaceuticals, robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology — all these areas where the progress has been a lot more limited than people think. And the question is, why?"
On choosing who to fund: "As an investor-entrepreneur, I’ve always tried to be contrarian, to go against the crowd, to identify opportunities in places where people are not looking."
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On defining a personal world view: "This is always a problem with elites, they’re always skewed in an optimistic direction."
On success: "The most successful businesses have an idea for the future that's very different from the present."
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On where we're going: “It seems like we’ve not been thinking about the right issues for a long time. I actually think it is a big step just to ask the question ‘What does one need to do to make the U.S. a better place?’"
On not accepting the status quo: "I think that one of the most contrarian things one can do in our society is try to think for oneself."
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On failure: "Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser."*
*Technically, this is a Vince Lombardi quote, but Thiel has made it something of a personal mantra.
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