I don't know that he's ever offered a position on life philosophy or nihilism.
I've read Zero to One and listened to multiple talks from him on YouTube. My impression is that he thinks we need to create new things and that innovation is slowing, partly due to regulation and partly due to people not believing they can create innovations that society needs to progress.
Thiel tells a story about how he got a job at a law firm and soon decided to leave and a colleague says "Wow, I didn't know anyone could leave Alcatraz". The point, to me, comes across as something like "Society tells you what the track to success is, e.g. become a lawyer at a fancy law firm, and because you believe this you are trapped in a prison of other people's expectations, but you are always completely free to walk out the door and follow your own path, you just have to be willing to do it.
On YouTube he has a talk called "You are not a lottery ticket" that covers his world view a bit. He also has a debate with Eric Schmidt from a few years back where he argues that Google isn't a tech company and investing in Google is a bet against innovation in search. In the debate he also talks about his ideas relating to innovation.
I see. Using that logic wouldn’t any investment on large established entities be anti-innovation. That applies to Palantir, right?
Is the most libertarian act to fund as many unique thus potentially innovative teams, people, or companies as possible? What do you do when one of those people or companies stagnate in their research or become another established entity?
I read Zero to One upon its release. It was short after the start of my career in tech. I think now as I did then, there is always room for improvement and the need for critical inquiry (critique) applied evenly to all things. I didn’t fully grasp the momentum of life. That includes governing bodies, corporations, markets, relationships, your own body. The concept of disruption and innovation to improve oneself or the world or a job or a tool is addicting. Where I get stuck is thinking through the consequences from innovation or large scale disruption. Back in 2014, FB was a good societal thing and now in 2021 not so much. Was it worth it? I lost my train of thought here.
When talking about Google Thiel contrasts it with Amazon. Amazon takes all of their money every year and tries to build new stuff with it or invests in improving their stuff. Google, by contrast, just has a large and growing pile of money.
In this sense, Google isn't innovating, they are just cashing in on their search/ads monopoly. This is why Thiel says investing in Google is a bet against search innovation. True search innovation would come from some startup that destroys Google. If you invest in Google you think that's not going to happen, hence you're being against it so you can keep extracting your rent.
I think Thiel is a very interesting guy and is maligned unfairly, although I haven't read the book this article is about.
Regarding Facebook, to me it seems pretty similar to how it's been for a while. It has pros and cons but I don't think the balance has changed in the last five or ten years.
