It's good to test yourself and develop your talents and ambitions as fully as you can and achieve greater success; but I think success is the feeling you get from a job well done, and the key thing is to do the work.
Investors are always biased to invest in things they themselves understand. So venture capitalists like Uber because they like driving in black town cars. They don't like Airbnb because they like staying in five-star hotels, not sleeping on people's couches.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Investors tend to favor investments they are familiar with, impacting their choices in venture capital.
Peter Thiel's quote illustrates a common bias among investors who are more inclined to put their money into ventures that resonate with their personal experiences or preferences. It highlights the notion that familiarity breeds comfort, and this tendency can lead to missed opportunities in sectors outside of their understanding, such as when investors overlook concepts like Airbnb because they prefer traditional luxury accommodations over more unconventional options.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about investment strategies, one might reference this quote to emphasize the importance of understanding market choices.
More from Peter Thiel
All quotes →The first question we would ask if aliens landed on this planet is not, 'What does this mean for the economy or jobs?' It would be, 'Are they friendly or unfriendly?'
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What is it about our society where anyone who does not have Asperger's gets talked out of their heterodox ideas?
Every time you write an email, it is in the public domain. There are all these ways where security is not as good as people believe.
Creating value isn't enough - you also need to capture some of the value you create.
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Your customers can tell you the things that are broken and how they want to be made happy. Listen to them. Make them happy. But don't rely on them to create the future road map for your product or service. That's your job.
I love business. I love helping urban communities grow. I love putting people to work of color. I love making sure - like right now the whole mortgage crisis, I want to help people get back into their homes.
I don't think a true company - one that builds sustainable value - can ever only exist online or remotely.
When an entrant competitor attacks the low end of any market, the rational reaction of the incumbent firms is to abandon rather than defend it - because the low end is the least profitable of their possible investments.
We are not influenced by the techniques or fashions of any other company.