378 Quotes by Peter Thiel

In the real world outside economic theory, every business is successful exactly to the extent that it does something others cannot. Monopoly is therefore not a pathology or an exception. Monopoly is the condition of every successful business.

The most successful businesses have an idea for the future that’s very different from the present.

But there is no reason why technology should be limited to computers. Properly understood, any new and better way of doing things is technology.

A product is viral if its core functionality encourages users to invite their friends to become users too.

College students can become extremely skilled at a few specialties, but many never learn what to do with those skills in the wider world.

Value investors look at cash flows. If a company can maintain present cash flows for 5 or 6 years, it’s a good investment. Investors then just hope that those cash flows – and thus the company’s value – don’t decrease faster than they anticipate.

Anyone who prefers owning part of your company to being paid in cash reveals a preference for the long term and a commitment to increasing your company’s value in the future.

Selling your company to the media is a necessary part of selling it to everyone else.

Watson, Deep Blue, and ever-better machine learning algorithms are cool. But the most valuable companies in the future won’t ask what problems can be solved with computers alone. Instead, they’ll ask: how can computers help humans solve hard problems?