Conversation

Conversely, listening to Peter Thiel talk is to listen to him stammer and fill the air with ums and uhhs and that’s why he’s absolutely terrifying.

Quote Tweet

Tom Morgan

@tom_morganKCP

Jun 1

"People with the ability to speak brilliantly off-the-cuff are also likely to be very good at finding instant and persuasive justifications for whatever it suits them to believe... The right words just magically appear, perfectly turned, glistening like truth."- @mrianleslie

Replying to

Really? My first impression was listening to him on Tyler Cowen back in the day and thinking he was clearly an articulate genius. He was good on The Portal too. One who I now comprehensively disagree with, but all the same...

Cedric Chin

@ejames_c

Replying to

@tom_morganKCP

Wow that’s fascinating — to me he presents as a genius, but a rather inarticulate one for the level he operates at. A friend of mine got drunk once and debated Thiel at the annual Palantir interns party (at Thiel’s house) and was struck by the same observation …

6:10 PM · Jun 1, 2022Twitter Web App

Replying to

Did they get the full time job offer? 😉

Replying to

Surprisingly yes 🤪

Show replies

Replying to

and

The force of Thiel’s ideas almost seems to override whatever inarticulatedness he has. I try and keep him in my head as an example of what a really effective person looks like.

Replying to

I think of Andrew Ryan from Bioshock a lot.

Replying to

and

In the Napster days my brother got in drunk debate w/ Dr Dre about music piracy. The arguments Dre made were proven false in time: he thought regulation would come in to stop mp3s being shared. He was suing Napster at the time. he was justifiably pissed when my brother said

Replying to

and

That regulation could only ever play whack a mole, as people move their piracy around to Evade the law.. But even though he had inaccurate opinions at that point, the success Dre has achieved in the music tech biz in the decades since speaks for itself.

Show replies

Replying to

and

'the annual palatir interns party' ?! Wow that's a lot of interns at palantir. Or a very shit party