He’s an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, hedge fund manager, and social critic. He co-founded PayPal with Max Levchin and Elon Musk and served as its CEO. He was ranked #4 on the Forbes Midas List of 2014 at $2.2 billion. He’s Peter Thiel and here are his Top 10 Rules for Success.
1. You are the entrepreneur of your life He studied 20th-century philosophy as an undergraduate at Stanford University.
2. Do one thing uniquely well An avowed libertarian, he founded The Stanford Review in 1987.
3. Make sure people align properly He formed friendships with other students at Stanford, many of whom contributed to the Stanford Review. Some of these friends later took up jobs at PayPal and became part of the PayPal Mafia.
4. Aim for monopoly In 1998 Thiel co-founded PayPal. It went public on February 15, 2002, and was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion later that year.
5. Don’t be a fake entrepreneur He was the first outside investor in Facebook, with a 10.2% stake acquired in 2004 for $500,000.
6. Value substance over status In addition to Facebook, Thiel has made early-stage investments in numerous startups, including Booktrack, Linkedln, Friendster, Yammer, Yelp, Palantir Technologies, Big think.
7. Don’t lose sight of what’s valuable In February 2013, Thiel received a TechCrunch Crunchie Award for Venture Capitalist of the year.
8. Trends are overrated He was a US-rated Chess Master and one of the highest ranked under-21 players in the country.
9. Don’t dwell on the past He’s a managing partner in Founders Fund, a venture capital fund with $2 billion in assets under management.
10. Find the secret path In 2010 he created the Thiel Fellowship, which will award $100,000 to 20 people under 20 years old, to spur them to drop out of college and create their own ventures.
This video was created by Evan Carmichael and is reposted with his consent.
Leave a Reply