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Founders: #31 Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue and Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

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What I learned from reading Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue and Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future --- Culture Eats Strategy [1:45] Conspiracy as a metaphor for a company [3:56] It is a story of poetic justice on a grand scale plotted silently for nearly a decade [6:02] Something in these pages planted itself deep into Thiel's mind when he first read it long ago [15:25] It was ruthless efficiency and hyper-competence. [21:40] You were driven to entrepreneurship because it was a safe space from consensus and from convention. [34:36] What if I do something about this? What might happen? What might happen if I do nothing? Which is riskier, to act or to ignore? [38:52] Sometimes these books teach us what not to do. [59:06] Unknown unknowns > known knowns [1:11:10] How you do one thing is how you do all things. [1:25:47] He had always been aggressive. He wouldn't have gotten where he was in life if he wasn't. [1:30:35] Companies routinely focus on silly things. [1:32:38] The greatest sin of a leader.[1:37:17] How resourceful is Peter Thiel?[1:41:37] Just keep asking why.[1:47:29] Gentlemen: You have undertaken to cheat me.

[00:00:00] So just a quick update before we get into the podcast. I decided to get rid of ads. In my day-to-day life, I avoid ads like the plague. I pay for YouTube premiums so I never have to see ads. I use a browser with a built-in ad blocker, and I fast-forward ads and podcasts. I do whatever I can to avoid ads because I know they are effective. To quote one of the books that I talk about on the podcast today, Zero to One, [00:00:24] advertising matters because it works. It works on nerds and it works on you. You may think that you're an exception, that your preferences are authentic,…

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