Competition is for Losers with Peter Thiel (How to Start a Startup 2014: 5)
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN recommends it as a serious, influential talk on market size and monopoly, though some commenters criticize its philosophy as endorsing anti-competitive goals.
What it is
Peter Thiel's lecture from the How to Start a Startup course on business strategy and monopoly theory, arguing that competition destroys profits and that startups should aim to build monopolies. It covers the ideas of Zero to One.
Recommended by 5 HN commenters across 5 different months, 2017 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec yyyuutt · 2020-09 · on “Ask HN: How to learn sales?”
Whenever I hear someone saying the market is huge I think of this classic Thiel talk. Sounds like its definitely something you should watch. [this video]
Strong rec gmays · 2021-09 · on “Peter Thiel became the most feared man in Silicon Valley”
For context, this article is about a new book, 'The Contrarian' about Thiel (I haven't read the book). I've long been a fan of Peter Thiel's thinking. If you're unfamiliar, this talk from YC's Startup School 2014 covering the ideas from Zero to One is excellent: [this video] But back the book this article is based on, I found this review of the book on Amazon quite insightful: [LINK] I've never met Peter Thiel, don't know much about him personally, and don't agree with everything he says and does, but he's a complex and interesting character that I've learned a lot from over the years. I think we all can.
Strong rec WhatIsAModel · 2024-04 · on “Airlines required to refund passengers for canceled, delayed flights”
Peter Thiel discusses this same doom loop and some of your points in this lecture that I highly recommend: [this video]
Recommends 29athrowaway · 2020-11 · on “Having 170 competitors in not an obstacle”
Watch this talk, "Competition is for losers" (by Peter Thiel) [this video] It's a clickbaity title but it's a serious talk.
Recommends narag · 2023-12 · on “Tampermonkey: Dev Mode will become mandatory for running userscripts in Chromium”
One phenomenon I've recently clued into is that of the "market-hostile business". Not only old businesses, watch Peter Thiel's "competition is for losers": [this video]
Cites mindcrime · 2017-04 · on “How United Airlines Went from “Friendly Skies” to Throwing People Off Flights”
I'm a little iffy on this idea that there is any monopoly on air travel in the US in any general sense. Maybe for specific routes, but if you look at the big picture, you have: 4 "major" carriers - American, Delta, United, Southwest 1 "mid major" / borderline major in Alaska Airlines 1 "not a major, but not exactly a regional carrier" in Jet Blue and a bunch of regional outfits like Frontier, Porter, Spirit, etc. That's not to say that more competition wouldn't be nice, but it's hardly the case that there is no competition. Heck, as far as that goes, Peter Thiel uses airlines - and their razor thin profit margins - as the prototypical example of why "competition is for losers"[1] in his talk
Cites nickff · 2020-05 · on “Why Restaurants Are So Fucked”
This post misses the forest for the trees. The reason for the low margins in the restaurant business is the lack of differentiation. Their products are largely commoditized, so they have no competitive advantage or market power. Peter Thiel discussed this in a lecture for YC, where he said that you can work very hard to make the best restaurant in a city, but it doesn't give you much pricing power, because the second best is still pretty good.[1] [1] [this video]
Cites peter_retief · 2022-03 · on “I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)”
Interesting, fun also some of the reactions I got to my many ideas. I have realised that one needs some sort of monopoly to make any money. [this video]