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it's hilarious that this guy doesn't know what "monopoly" actually means.

So his complaint is that he can't make enough money by competing. Got it...he's actually a pretty shitty businessman then.

As a self-made billionaire, I'd say he's a fairly successful businessman. While the video may not do his thesis justice, the article and the book are far more comprehensive. Thiel is basically saying go for the blue ocean and not to compete in the ref one.

There's no such thing as a self made billionaire. You do not get that kind of money without the help of others, exploiting others, doing illegal shit, or basically being a fucking thief.

You can look at any billionaire and their past will be littered with the bodies of other people. The point is it's just way too much money for someone to make on their own legitimately.

So I wasn't just imagining things when I mentally replaced the 'L' in Thiel's name with an 'F'. The article really covers this subject better than the video and is worth the read even if I don't agree with all of his conclusions. For instance he asserts that competition hampers innovation because competitors are too busy fighting it out to take the time to do so, when innovation will be what differentiates you from the competition in the first place. He reasons that monopolies have the time and money to plot out the future, but without competition why bother when you can just continue to profit from the status quo. He seems to assume that monopolies will act as beneficent rulers and not greedy tyrants, even though recent events involving ISP monopolies would suggest the latter.

I'm curious just how he thinks competitors would be fighting it out, if not by innovating and improving products and services...unless, in his mind, they hire armies to do battle.

He's just an apologist for the corporatists. Not a great surprise, since that's how he made and makes his money.

Moving this video to Trancecoach's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

Yeah, well, that's just like...your opinion, man.

You mean like Zuckerberg or Gates?

Where are the bodies?

hyperbole, agenda driven

Why yes it certainly does seem like hyperbole when you fail to read everything I said. I also said this "You do not get that kind of money without the help of others, exploiting others, doing illegal shit, or basically being a fucking thief." Bodies of course being hyperbolic (sometimes, not in the case of Oil Barons) and also metaphorical.

I don't think I have to address Zuckerbergs thievery it's pretty well documented that he had to pay people off to avoid lengthy court cases. It's pretty obvious he isn't Self Made in any way.

Bill Gates well a lot of people have plenty of stories about him stealing things and doing shit that's very sketchy but how about we ignore that. Let's go to the fact that he developed (stole) programs to run on something that was made from public funds by the military. Computers are completely anti-free market, they come from and were created by massive intervention in the market.

If you use a computer and the internet you're basically supporting socialism and betraying the free market.

It certainly is and I have yet to see a Billionaire that can be described as Self-Made. I am open to examples.

Just wow. No competition is how you get advancement, but competition stifles it by making you too busy?!? Maybe in utopia where business act like the most upright and benevolent of people and always act properly and altruistically with their customers coming first, but that's not how it works on the planet I live on.

It's always hilarious to me how the 'rich' convince themselves that they made their wealth in a vacuum once they've made the wealth, but on the way up they're right there with their hand out any time there's a possibility of getting 'something for nothing' (like tax breaks amounting to 0% tax, exemptions from regulations at taxpayer expense, use of public services they don't pay for, public education for their workforce, etc....).
In America at least, business all stand on the shoulders of both industry/innovation that came before them AND (crumbling, ignored) infrastructure paid for and 'maintained' by taxpayers (taxpayers that didn't use every possible method to avoid paying their share...and the obligation shirking industries' share as well). Zuckerberg and Gates are two fine examples of this, both their companies are built on an industry created by the government/taxpayers...computers...and also of people profiting exorbitantly from other people's work product while the actual 'creators' are salaried lower middle class at best that don't own their own creations.

"Self-made" simply means they didn't inherit their millions. Most millionaires are "self-made".

"Legitimately"? What do you mean by that?

trancecoach clearly has no understanding how big business works.