Summary of Peter Thiel: You Are Not a Lottery Ticket | Interactive 2013 | SXSW

00:00:00 - 00:50:00

Peter Thiel discusses the importance of having a long-term vision in business, and how this can lead to success. He argues that the current world view of optimism is largely indefinite, and that this has led to problems in the economy and finance. He suggests that we need to focus on insurance in order to cope with the indeterminate future.

• 00:00:00 Peter Thiel discusses the question of luck, how it's difficult to answer, and the different ways one can think about the future.
• 00:05:00 Peter Thiel discusses the differences between determinate and indeterminate futures, and how to approach life in either case. He suggests using a portfolio approach to the future, and discusses the importance of diversifying one's investments.
• 00:10:00 Peter Thiel discusses the difference between the US's optimistic and pessimistic periods, and how this has affected investing habits. He suggests that China is in a determinate pessimistic period, while the US is still in an indeterminate optimism period.
• 00:15:00 In the video, Peter Thiel discusses how the shift from determinate to indeterminate optimism affects different industries and how this can be seen in historical examples. He also discusses the education bubble, which is an example of indeterminate optimism in action.
• 00:20:00 Peter Thiel discusses the difference between a world with a definite vs. indefinite view of the future, and how this affects how we think about money and investing. He argues that in a world with an indefinite view, money becomes more important and we have no idea what to do with it.
• 00:25:00 Peter Thiel discusses the effect of an indefinite world of optimism on the economy and finance, pointing out that investments in things like housing have largely gone out of favor. He warns that if the world continues to move away from traditional values, the future of society may be bleak.
• 00:30:00 Peter Thiel discusses the different types of determinism in philosophy, highlighting the optimistic and pessimistic varieties. He argues that the optimistic view is the same as the libertarian view, while the pessimistic view is more classical in nature.
• 00:35:00 Peter Thiel discusses the dominant view of the universe as being essentially random and indeterminate, and how we can only hope to cope with this by focusing on the act of insurance.
• 00:40:00 Peter Thiel discusses the idea of indeterminate or indefinite optimism, comparing it to Darwin's theory of evolution. He suggests that, in practice, environmentalism will always win over economics because the search space for businesses is much larger than the search space for great businesses. He also discusses the inefficiency of iteration processes, and the tendency for iterations to lead to low-hanging hills that eventually lead to failure.
• 00:45:00 Peter Thiel discusses how the short time horizons of many businesspeople affects their ability to make successful predictions about the future. He also discusses how successful businesses often have a long-term vision that is not fully valued by the market, and how it is important for founders to have a strong secret plan in order to maintain their business' robustness.
• 00:50:00 Peter Thiel discusses the decision not to sell Facebook to Microsoft in 2013, saying that there were many reasons why it was the right decision. He argues that, as a company, Facebook had the opportunity to build new products that would improve the future.