If you think your initial market might be too big, it almost certainly is. — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
As you craft a plan to expand to adjacent markets, don't disrupt: Avoid competition as much as possible. — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
If you think about basic science or coming up with new theories of mathematics, these are not the kinds of things which… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
First, only invest in companies that have the potential to return the value of the entire fund. — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
“Whoever is first to dominate the most important segment of a market with viral potential will be the last mover in the… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
Value investors look at cash flows. If a company can maintain present cash flows for 5 or 6 years, it’s a good… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
University administrators are the equivalent of subprime mortgage brokers selling you a story that you should go into debt massively, that it's… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
If you invest in Microsoft or Oracle, or a number of other companies for that matter, you're fundamentally making a bet that… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
I think that markets classically fail in cases where there are public goods that provide benefits that people cannot capture. The big… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
The business model piece is we're always talking about competing more effectively. If you're starting a company or career you don't want… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
Competition is overrated. In practice it is quite destructive and should be avoided wherever possible. Much better than fighting for scraps in… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
Customers won’t care about any particular technology unless it solves a particular problem in a superior way. And if you can’t monopolize… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
“War metaphors invade our everyday business language: we use headhunters to build up a sales force that will enable us to take… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
“Facebook, the best investment in our 2005 fund, returned more than all the others combined. Palantir, the second-best investment, is set to… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
“. . . the bond bubble, the tech bubble, the stock bubble, the emerging markets bubble, the housing bubble. . . One… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
“You’ve probably heard about “first mover advantage”: if you’re the first entrant into a market, you can capture significant market share while… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
The biggest secret in venture capital is that the best investment in a successful fund equals or outperforms the entire rest of… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
When you are starting a new business you don't want to go after giant markets. You want to go after small markets… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
“Every startup is small at the start. Every monopoly dominates a large share of its market. Therefore, every startup should start with… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
“This implies two very strange rules for VCs. First, only invest in companies that have the potential to return the value of… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
“To anticipate likely sources of misalignment in any company, it’s useful to distinguish between three concepts: • Ownership: who legally owns a… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
Higher education is the place where people who had big plans in high school get stuck in fierce rivalries with equally smart… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
I think markets are often not thinking on a long-time horizon, I think that our government structurally is doing even less so.… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
People don't want to believe that technology is broken. Pharmaceuticals, robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology - all these areas where the progress has been a… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
If you think about basic science or coming up with new theories of mathematics, these are not the kinds of things which are necessarily… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
I think we have a bubble in the US in government bonds, because of the quantitative easing and the negative real interest rates, and… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
“Time and decision-making themselves follow a power law, and some moments matter far more than others” — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
“Today, we exaggerate the differences between left-liberal egalitarianism and libertarian individualism because almost everyone shares their common indefinite attitude. In philosophy, politics, and business,… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
When you already have $150 billion a year in revenues from the iPhone, it's very hard to come up with any new vertical that… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
“CREATIVE MONOPOLY means new products that benefit everybody and sustainable profits for the creator. Competition means no profits for anybody, no meaningful differentiation, and… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
“we have given up our sense of wonder at secrets left to be discovered.” — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
“Today our society is permeated by the twin ideas that death is both inevitable and random.” — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
“if your company can be summed up by its opposition to already existing firms, it can’t be completely new and it’s probably not going… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
“Is a lukewarm attitude to one’s work a sign of mental health? Is a merely professional attitude the only sane approach?” — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
“If you’ve invented something new but you haven’t invented an effective way to sell it, you have a bad business—no matter how good the… — Peter Thiel Copy Share Image
