yyyuutton Hacker News • Recommends
On “Ask HN: How to learn sales?”
Whenever I hear someone saying the market is huge I think of this classic Thiel talk. Sounds like its definitely something you should watch. link to this video
0:00 / 0:00
#peterthiel#zerotoone#monopoly
Competition is for Losers with Peter Thiel (How to Start a Startup 2014: 5)
Y Combinator
2.4M subscribers • 17 videos on Hallway
- Recommended by 5 people: 5 on Hacker News.
- A classic. People kept recommending it from 2020 to 2024.
- Presented by Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal and Palantir
- An opinion. It argues one side of a question engineers disagree on.
Beginner. No background in the topic needed.
2.4M views9 years ago5 recommendations
Careers and interviewsStartupsInside tech companiesCareer growth
Peter Thiel discusses business strategy and monopoly theory, arguing that startups should avoid competition and build monopolies instead.
Lecture Transcript: tech.genius.com/Peter-thiel-lecture-5-business-strategy-and-… Peter Thiel, founder of Paypal and Palantir, discusses business strategy and monopoly theory in "Competition is For Losers". See the slides and readings at startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec05 Discuss this lecture: startupclass.co/courses/how-to-start-a-startup/lectures/6403… Chapters (Powered by bit.ly/chapterme-yc) - - Introduction - Outline - Capturing value - Big piece of a small pie - Perfect competition - Monopoly - Lies people tell - Differences underestimated - Narratives - British food in Palo Alto - Do the intersections make money? - Blockbuster movie - Is the intersection valuable? - Startup version - The search market - The advertising market - The technology market - Evidence of narrow markets - How to build a monopoly - The right size - Start small and expand - Start big and shrink - Last mover advantage - Characteristics of monopoly - Value of the future - History of innovation - Technological innovation - Capturing value - Success cases - Psychology of competition - Mimetic preferences - Competition as validation - Q&A - Q1 - Q2 - Q3 - Q4 - Q5 - Q6Why it's here
5 people recommend this, 2 dispute itWhat people say. Recommended as an excellent and classic lecture on startup strategy and the core ideas behind Zero to One.
gmayson Hacker News • Recommends
On “Peter Thiel became the most feared man in Silicon Valley”
For context, this article is about a new book, 'The Contrarian' about Thiel (I haven't read the book). I've long been a fan of Peter Thiel's thinking. If you're unfamiliar, this talk from YC's Startup School 2014 covering the ideas from Zero to One is excellent: link to this video But back the book this article is based on, I found this review of the book on Amazon quite insightful: link I've never met Peter Thiel, don't know much about him personally, and don't agree with everything he says and does, but he's a complex and interesting character that I've learned a lot from over the years. I think we all can.
WhatIsAModelon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Airlines required to refund passengers for canceled, delayed flights”
Peter Thiel discusses this same doom loop and some of your points in this lecture that I highly recommend: link to this video
29athrowawayon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Having 170 competitors in not an obstacle”
Watch this talk, "Competition is for losers" (by Peter Thiel) link to this video It's a clickbaity title but it's a serious talk.
naragon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Tampermonkey: Dev Mode will become mandatory for running userscripts in Chromium”
One phenomenon I've recently clued into is that of the "market-hostile business". Not only old businesses, watch Peter Thiel's "competition is for losers": link to this video
benreesmanon Hacker News • Disputes
On “Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Linker Script (2021)”
I mean, Unit 5 of Thiel’s startup 101 lectures at Stanford is titled “Competition is for Losers”. He leads off with making sure everyone is crystal clear that “attaining a monopoly” aka anti-trust fraud is his “idee fixé”. This isn’t hosted on InfoWars. It’s hosted on YC’s YouTube channel. It’s not a secret what these guys are doing and plan to do more of: link to this video
benreesmanon Hacker News • Disputes
On “The entire healthcare system is broken, not just health insurance companies”
…l while unconscious!) is especially prone to market failure. The United States especially (though late neoliberal “capitalism” to some degree generally) and HN/SV/EA especially now go so far as to actively endorse induced market failure as the goal . Fuck that. Fuck everyone who is on board with it. This is your goblin brainchild @pg: renounce it. link to this video…
AndrewKemendoon Hacker News • Disputes
On “Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case”
“Competition is for losers” - A talk from Peter Thiel hosted by Y combinator ( link to this video ) Timestamp 13:50: “If you’re a startup, and you want to get to a monopoly, start with a really small market and you take over that whole market and then you find ways to expand that market in concentric circles” Last I checked Zuckerberg is doing precisely what Thiel taught him to and has done it with preternatural skill. This is the standard for how you’re expected to act as a technology “leader” - which the majority of VC backed unicorn goal founders (like every FAANG founder) have been executing since day zero.
mindcrimeon Hacker News • Mentions
On “How United Airlines Went from “Friendly Skies” to Throwing People Off Flights”
…ch of regional outfits like Frontier, Porter, Spirit, etc. That's not to say that more competition wouldn't be nice, but it's hardly the case that there is no competition. Heck, as far as that goes, Peter Thiel uses airlines - and their razor thin profit margins - as the prototypical example of why "competition is for losers"1 in his talks. 1: link to this video…
nickffon Hacker News • Mentions
On “Why Restaurants Are So Fucked”
This post misses the forest for the trees. The reason for the low margins in the restaurant business is the lack of differentiation. Their products are largely commoditized, so they have no competitive advantage or market power. Peter Thiel discussed this in a lecture for YC, where he said that you can work very hard to make the best restaurant in a city, but it doesn't give you much pricing power, because the second best is still pretty good.1 1 link to this video
peter_retiefon Hacker News • Mentions
On “I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)”
Interesting, fun also some of the reactions I got to my many ideas. I have realised that one needs some sort of monopoly to make any money. link to this video
ly3xqhl8g9on Hacker News • Mentions
On “Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment”
By control point you can understand a corporation or a government, no need for false dichotomies: in the age of capital there is no beyond. Enron was a weak company, nowhere near the escape reality velocity: at peak, in 2000, they had a market capitalization of $60 billion, at the same time Microsoft was at $600 billion 1. Also, any company worth their capital knows very well that "competition is for losers" 2 and dreams of the ultimate consolidation 3. 1 The Largest Public Companies by Market Cap (2000–2022), link 2 Competition Is for Losers, link , link to this video 3 The Consolidation Curve, link