I wish more people understood this.
That said, if a 60 minute talk can provide even one useful insight that's useful, I'd say it's a win. And I think his "zero to one" talk had at least two or three.
Honestly, I concluded GOOG was an advertising company pretending to be a "tech" company some time ago, but if I say it I'm a "troll", if Thiel says it, well it might be true, right?
I'd assume at least a dozen things are more important than advertising inexpensive Chinese made socks to Americans. But I could be wrong.
If by highest you mean, "most lucrative" then yes, I agree.
Ime he's a walking personification of "jack of all trades, master of none".
That's the perfect trait for a VC (broad knowledge is critical to identify market trends), but it has its flaws such as extreme simplification of complex topics.
That said, you can rightfully argue that this is why you are investing in egghead founders - so they can deal with solving those problems and logic gaps.
> If the Washington intellectual aims for authority and expertise, the Silicon Valley intellectual seeks novel or counter-intuitive insights. He claims to judge ideas on their utility; in practice I find he cares mostly for how interesting an idea first seems. He likes concepts that force him to puzzle and ponder. > This is fertile soil for the dabbler, the heretic, and the philosopher from first principles.