YOU ARE NOT A LOTTERY TICKET - Notes A big question. How much of what we do is chalked up to luck? This is true in life, start ups, and somewhat philosophical too, so it’s important. So he breaks it down into 4 topics - The question of luck - Determinate vs indeterminate futures - Is indeterminate optimism possible? - The return of Design - Overview Thesis - The question of luck is very hard to answer because you only have a sample size of 1 to go on - We live in a society that’s incredibly biased to thinking that things are dominated by luck - Finally, he takes a look at some alternative ways to think about the future to explore To start, when you think about how the 21st century will unfold, there are 2 axis: a technology axis and a globalization axis. So what do these things even mean? What are technological advances and globalization advances? - Globalization: copying things that already work. - It’s the story of China and the emerging world. - They mainly just have to copy things that already work & avoid copying bad ideas from developed nations - A lot of it is horizontal extensive progress. Going from 1 to N. - Technological Advances: This is being creative, innovating, being the artist or entrepreneur doing something that’s never been done before. Going 0 to 1. There’s something very different about the 2. With innovation, there’s something singular and non repeatable about it. So if we go back to the question and ask, was a given accomplishment just luck, a fluke, or was there more at play? With a sample size of one, variance becomes infinite. Mathematical models are useless. It’s completely unclear if it’s luck or not, especially if you go from 0 to 1. There is some evidence of repeatability. Steve Jobs, Elon Musk. But you could still say they just had one big break and used that to leverage their other big breaks, so it’s still hard to say. If you go back in time, the classical way of thinking was that luck was something to be overcome. - “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.” - Thomas Jefferson - “The harder I work, the luckier I get” - Samuel Goldwyn Today, there’s a much different view: The lucky sperm club, you’re lucky where you’re born; and that’s what drives everything. And that applies to startups, the successful ones were accidental. And this worldview stems off of today's worldview of luck; so let’s challenge how much of this is or isn’t true. There’s 2 ways to look at the orientation of this question which is the past, how did I get here? And the future, where can I go next, where do I go from here? Is the future something dominated by chance or is thinking about it in terms of chance the wrong or incomplete way of looking at it? Now, the structure of the future, and you can think about it in terms of being determinate or indeterminate and optimistic or pessimistic. If you believe that the future is determinate, you’ll act with some level of conviction, you’ll have ideas, and you’ll have confidence to work to those ideas. If it’s indeterminate, the no. 1 rule is to diversify because you have no idea if it’s going to work and you should just try lots of different things and take some sort of portfolio approach to the future. Both of these ideas become self fulfilling. If you think it’s determinate and you focus on doing one thing extremely well, that leads to conviction, and then it becomes self fulfilling. If you think it’s fundamentally indeterminate, you have the portfolio approach and it becomes self fulfilling and more indeterminate. If you look at it in history, you can break it down in chunks of time. In the 1950s, we had determinate optimism, imaginations of flying cars, Star Trek tech. China has pessimistic determinism. If you have a definite determinism rate, you’ll know what to invest in. If it’s indeterminate, you won’t know what to invest in. The strange thing about indeterminate optimism is that it is the quadrant that has both low savings and low investment, and the big question is if that is a stable quadrant to be in at all? Is it possible for the future to be better when no one saves and no one invests because no one is thinking and everyone is outsourcing the thinking to other people. One other way you could describe this difference of this shift from determinate to indeterminate ways of the future is that the mathematical version is that the dominant form of math used to be calculus (determinate) and now it’s probability and statistics (indeterminate) The structural way is that in a determinate world you’re focused on substance, in an indeterminate world, all you focus on are processes, like, what’s the process for doing something. In practice, this translates to jobs. Optimistic determinism is engineering and art, where people have dreams about the future that no one else shares that they plan to turn into reality. Optimistic indeterminism is finance and law. Pessimistic determinism is wartime rationing, pessimistic in-determinism is insurance.

Anyone else enjoying every word of this presentation?

More relevant than ever in late 2020. Truly timeless wisdom.

Just simply fantastic speech. Bravo.

How is anyone this intelligent! Man! Thanks for this! I loooooved it!

Holy crap. I knew Thiel was a great mind, but this is the best one yet. Really fascinating, practical and ingenious view of society.

How is this 8 years old and I'm just now hearing this? I'm only a few minutes in and this is already seeming like an incredibly important talk

Thiel’s grid basically covered a major question on my mind for a while now. Somehow he’s able to structure the question, provide a simple framework to explain the observed phenomenon, and extrapolate on the underlying reasons. That’s when I realize how far away I am from genius level intelligence.

This guy is genius, his ideas are breathtaking.

For more information please read his book "Zero to One" especially if you are working in core technologies, could be mobile apps or AI or anything more specific. It will change your mindset and open you to a new world of possibilities.

Wow... i always heard that Thiel was a brilliant guy....I can't believe I never heard him speak until now. Amazing talk.

WOW! Peter thiel is the ultimate philosophical thinker!

I love that he talks about infrastructure! We can’t even maintain what was built 70 years ago let alone build with the passion of that time!

Great talk. The analysis overlays on the 2x2 grid gives a lot of insight.

I love to hear this man speak

Excellent presentation by Mr. Thiel. Thank you.

Everytime I hear Peter talking it enlights me. He is just so freaking right... It's just so sad how well he describes the world. This shift from determinate optimism to indeterminate optimism, and, after all, to pessimism.

Amazing . Thank you

He is one of a kind thinker. The main point of the book was that you should not rely on luck but it is good if you do get lucky. The title is " you are not a lottery ticket" meaning that you just don't get random chance. You have to make preparations and plans regardless of you are lucky or not. It would help to be lucky but relying on luck is bad.

Love his ideas a lot..Speaks like a true visionary with tons of lessons and case studies from the past (from all geographies) and all structures- capitalist or socialist and comes up with non partisan analysis of the world. Amazing speaker to listen to. Thanks for the upload.

Very cool. Listening on and off throughout the workday. Audio quality is excellent. Video great as well.

Ok here from a Solving the Money Problem comment. Great thing about these videos is that we can have deeper perspectives with nuances of times and years past, I might have even been at that SXSW.

I respect this man so much …

I didnt expect to, but oh my word, did I resonate with this! New found respect for Peter Thiel!

wow, what incredible ideas, and thinking, its great that he has the succesfull history to back it all up.

people say majoring in philosophy is a waste of time, yet here you have arguably the best investor, and one of the best minds of our time using it as a clear foundation for everything he does in both metaphysical and utilitarian terms. of course, him being a genius helps as well.

Thiel's Thoughts are terrific. He is a futurist. I appreciate his vision. I bet hanging out at a cocktail party with Peter and Ann Coulter is fun.

Practical, simplified, and deductive reasoning to help evaluate existing, emerging, and novel markets & opportunities. Creating the future or responding to the present.

Best Peter Thiel talk ever?

This was really good. I was firmly on the luck camp before watching this talk. Now, I'm not so sure. Peter Thiel makes some really good points here

I love Peter Thiel, I love what he has to say. What I do not love is that for all the unique ideas he has, he doesn't act any of them out. He invests a small percentage of his money into research, and small amount into the Thiel foundation. If he wants the world to revert back to an optimistic certainty, he should be the first person to commit as much of his wealth as he can. And not wait for a braver billionaire/millionaire to do it first. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezo's do this somewhat, but to the length Thiel proposes, he bawks at decision to do it first.

- when people have ideas for a better future, money is a means to an end, there are specific things people want to do with the money. When people have no idea how to build a better future, money becomes an end in itself, people accumulate money and don't know what to do with it. - monotonic and potentially never-ending improvement

Great conference

24:12 Shift from definite to indefinite views of the future = Shift from engineering to finance. Money becomes much more important, transforms from a means to an end to an end in itself. 29:00 Natural drift from finance to insurance (Warren Buffett play).

Thiel is the smartest man of the 21st century. Treasure his every word.

Awesome! THANKS!

Peter Thiel and Elon Musk are near-perfect examples of entrepreneurship. They have the 'moonshot thinking' mentality and that is what we need to contunie innovation and improve humanity.

amazing

Peter Thiel = Badass

Thks much for sharing. Having overcome a great many years of profound self-sacrifices, achieved an incredible personal breakthrough, progress in technology, wealth, power, and conventional fame to this date; however, many great men, women, and the whole world continue neglecting and unable to identify some of the greatest, most meaningful, and much more needed projects to timely rescue and heal the many internal, desperately state illnesses, wounded physical, mental, and spirits of the people throughout the world, not in space or Mars. *** What is it and when? Best wishes always, altc, Paideia Academy & Society

Unbelievable. This 1 hour talk gives me more ideas than a year in college

Every word is a gem

His speaking style was much better here than now.

It is pretty amazing how he oversees the other options in his deterministic vs indeterminate and positive vs negative.

Very interesting. Btw, that is one of my favorite movie scenes.

The Einstein of entrepreneurship. 99.999% of entrepreneurship advice out there is pure garbage about creating scams and copying others, thank you Peter for inspiring us to think for ourselves and value vision over risk management.

6:36 "Right place, right time"-- by person(s) who *decided* to be a certain place doing a certain thing at a certain time.

Living in a society where agency is viewed as limited to nonexistent is actually a real advantage for those who believe in it; by going after a more valuable long-term outcome and beginning to succeed towards it, they are imbued with an aura of "evolutionary validation", becoming the safe outcome in a landscape of dangerously unproven options. In an environment of optimistic determinism; they would not be able to attract as much attention/capital because it would "optimistically" be elsewhere.

One hour of Peter Thiel not understanding luck.

There are people who know and they are the ones who are lucky. Usually both in one person.

I feel like I’m listening to a homily. 💎☯️💗💎

We really don’t need anything new anymore what is really needed is to do what we do make what is made but do it better.

The last line 😀

1. One of the most important guys currently alive. 2. "Um", "sort of" and "you know" ought to be removed from vocabulary for maximal effect.

Going from zero to one!

Peter Thiel for President, this should have 300 million views

My favorite part of Peter is him helping Hulk Hogan absolutely rek that trash company gawker

The very fact you are born is unbelievably lucky in this vast Universe. Notwithstanding that axiomatic position, let's focus in on the preoccupation of human existence.

Birth is the only time when we are at the mercy of luck. Every single action you take has a consequence. Those consequences are never luck. By saying, "getting into the entertainment industry is like winning the lottery!" you are failing to acknowledge the work agents do and the reasoning and decision making process behind the work they do. "To be able to say "you're wrong, and here are the reasons," is respect." ~ Penn Jillette

24:16- About future: Definite(People have ideas about how the future's gonna look like)/Indefinite(People have no clue about future) and Optimism/Pessimism. Combination of 1 from each sums up the situation of the society, most of the times. More of that.

mad props to this guy; fuckin genius; love listening to him

Really smart guy, I really admire him alot on paper and like him as a person... I just can't get through his talking engagements without completely losing interest in the thing he is talking about... hmmm...

This speech focuses on future, where we go from here..? Is the future dominated by chance? He has an alternate perspective on that question using his {2 by 2 matrix based on optimism and determinism}. Which of the quadrants of the matrix you believe in, determines what approach you take in life. Your beliefs become self-fulfilling.

Peter Theil for President 2020

peter thiel is cool

The high class mobility in the USA shows that intelligence and hard work are the keys to success.

Great talk. Would have like to see more emphasis on conclusions at the end.

Peter now speaks at 1.25x the speed he did in this video

The optimism of old, such as building the tallest buildings in the world, is now called “duck waving” and rockets are called “phallic-shaped wastes of money which could be given to the impoverished” as if no extraordinary pursuits are worthwhile and they’re all ultimately some form of injustice, which has become a cudgel

Yes

thanx!

Was that a secret elevator pitch by Thiel to be a monarch? If it is, I cannot wait. All hail the one true King!! :P

What was the movie playing around the 38:00 mark?

Amazing talk. One quibble @33:30. Nozick only presumes the existence of an individual - we can prove that individuals exist in base reality. Rawls presumes that social democracy is real. We can't show that it isn't a mass delusion because we know that it only exists at the level of ideas Point to Nozick.

I enjoyed this talk and I found it rather amusing and interesting that he actually acknowledged one of the arguments made by environmentalists against a pure unregulated market, and at the end even had a nice thing to say about Marx. Though I'm sure Peter Thiel isn't endorsing Marx here in anything but an extremely limited and narrow sense on one topic, it was still rather shocking and funny to hear one of the most famous libertarians on the planet say anything positive about either environmentalists or Marx... :)

And therefore, for the sake of Oneself, humanity, and immortality, according to the Ancient Chinese Secret Wisdom Tradition, what are the five kinds of most prosperous, most powerful knowledge and wisdom that every individual could and should possess? altc, Paideia Esoteric Society

Peter Thiel is smart, rich, eloquent and “makes sense”. Personally, I’m always skeptical of what Daniel Kahneman calls “illusion of understanding and Nassim Taleb refers to as “Epistomologic Arrogance”.

The information is great. I want more people to see this. However, the delivery is a bit on the dry side. 0_o

Thiel is right. I see this alot in countries aswell. America is a country that beleives strictly in deterministic futures. Germany is a country that beleives in indtereminate and statistics driven future. Germany feels more driven by finances and traditional/conservative business practices imo, while America seems bigger on tech and "the next big thing". America is subsequently known for the shit ton of money it gives startup while Germany is known to have a severe brain drain crisis to America. America has no free healthcare and has a sever elack of social services, while Germany has a strong set of social services since they beleive you can fall through the cracks purely by chance. America is a special country imo. Just because of how deterministic people are.

When you speak to many Chinese today they are both doing very well and optimistic, I'm finding Americans quite pessimistic regards the economy and US dollar, amongst other political issues, granted it's hard to define a nation and predict the future, since the butterfly effect and chaos will always play it's hand. Life usually doesn't agree with your projections, modelling complex systems is difficult.

Wow

Aye Startup, WA!!!!

Just because you are not a lottery ticket doesn't mean that Peter Thiel is not a losing ticket. ;-)

hello darkness my old friend

It's simply awesome. Really had to laugh out quite loud at 25:30 :-D

26:28 Growth stock that reinvest their cash are better than companies that have large sums of cash

what is the movie clip from?

wow

The idea of investing into companies with no cash flow because they have ideas really aged well with the recent successes of Tesla.

Sounds like it's time for me to take a more determinate and optimistic view of the future, then use it to take other people's money for investments.

I am glad to be of service by dispelling the fundamental randomness and meaninglessness of the universe perception of reality as erroneous… 😎

very useful. invest in stock market index: 23:13

AMAZING

Asi es!....

What is the video clip @ 37:20 ? Is it from any movie? Can someone tell me?

What movie was that at 39:00?

Terrible speaker, terrible slides... but what an incredible lecture, perspective and philosophy behind this. Life changing stuff.

Ben got the Gucci belt

2013, he's already behind the times.

26:28 Apple and Disney.