Facebook

Peter Thiel: Monopolies are Good

Peter Thiel, PayPal founder and venture capitalist, said in his new book, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future, that he doesn't find anything wrong with monopolies.

"Monopolies are bad in the static world," Thiel told Press:Here, but he said that many tech companies aren't like the rent collectors in the Monopoly board game. "It's good when a company invents something completely new that no one else has... That's a creative monopoly that's very valuable for a company."

Thiel said that Google is considered a creative monopoly and that it uses a "Don't be evil" slogan (which has been modified to "You can make money without being evil.") Google has also taken some of its profits to create Google X, its research lab, that could benefit mankind.  All these things are in line with Thiel's thinking in his book that if companies are left to themselves they will create good things.

Sarah Lacy from PandoDaily asked if that's true, then why did some companies, such as Apple and Google, decide on wage collusion as a way to keep wages down for engineers?

"They won’t always do good," Thiel said. "The wage collusion was shocking precisely because it’s so unnecessary. These companies have so much money they don’t actually don’t need to collude."

Thiel said that instead people should celebrate the people, such as Facebook's chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, who opted out of the conspiracy. "We should call out the people who didn't get involved," he said.

Thiel also lamented that conformity in the world and education seems to be rising. "What is it about our society that people who are not socially inept are somehow talked out of all their creative ideas before they're fully formed?" he asked.  

Contact Us