In our time, the great task for libertarians is to find an escape from politics in all its formsโfrom the totalitarian and fundamentalist catastrophes to the unthinking demos that guides so-called โsocial democracy.โ . . . We are in a deadly race between politics and technology. . . . The fate of our world may depend on the effort of a single person who builds or propagates the machinery of freedom that makes the world safe for capitalism.
Peter ThielI do think Tim Cook is doing a very good job, I think he has almost impossibly big shoes to fill with Steve Jobs' departure. And so, that's the context always someone has to put things in. But, I do think that for the most part that Apple is at a point where it's much more focused on scale than on doing new things.
Peter ThielI think China thinks information technology is less important than we think it is in the US, economically, and more important politically. And so Chinese internet companies are extremely political, they're protected behind the great firewall of China, and investment in Alibaba is good as long as Jack Ma stays in the good graces of the Chinese communist party. Alibaba is largely copying various business models from the US; they have combined some things in interesting new ways, but I think it's fundamentally a business that works because of the political protection you get in China.
Peter ThielWe cannot take for granted that the future will be better, and that means we need to work to create it today.
Peter ThielEVERY MOMENT IN business happens only once. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin wonโt make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg wonโt create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you arenโt learning from them.
Peter Thiel