Eric Schmidt and Peter Thiel - Fortune Debate, 2012

I used to watch some of these IQ debates in college, they can be really good. The longer format and strong moderation really lend themselves to interesting discussions, and you can learn a lot. One of my favourite debates of this format (though not IQ) is Peter Thiel vs Eric Schmidt (then executive chairman of Google) arguing about whether Google was still capable of innovation 2012: link to this video

One of the most interesting debates was between Eric Schmidt and Peter Thiel back in 2012, especially in the positions that Eric staked out: link to this video

Thiel and Schmidt have two very different worldviews, they had a debate on capital 'P' progress a few years ago. link to this video Many people find Thiel's argument hard to believe, especially if they are aspirational middle class types. This is because normal people have a chronocentric bias. Of all our biases, this one is probably the strongest of all. If you find Thiel's position hard to believe, it is worth examining what our grandparents thought about the future. "The Home of the Future in 1999" (from the 1960s) link I am at the point where I consider the optimistic narrative (ex-computation) utterly without supporting evidence. It is all PR and marketing. Here is one example. Consider the disc…

The comments in here remind me of this video: link to this video Eric Schmidt takes the side a lot of people here take, which is "everything is getting better", and Peter Thiel takes the other side, that things aren't getting better. I don't think things are getting better at all. You can easily just use your own metrics and then come to the conclusion that everything is getting better. The problem is, your metrics are bullshit so you are coming to the wrong conclusion. I have seen all kinds of metrics used in here like "don't have to hunt", "live longer", "safer", "can watch netflix". I don't think any of these things have to do with whether or not people's lives are getting better. You can just take…

It can really be seen as another form of dividend (or payout) depending on how you look at it. And yes it is fairly common when capital is available especially when no major re-investment opportunities present themselves that would utilize the capital in more efficient ways than mere buybacks. Edit: a bit off topic but this "discussion" between Theil and Schmidt in my opinion highlights why companies are buying back their stock link to this video