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36:52 - His articles have appeared in the WSJ, Washington Times, San Francisco Chronicle, 
37:02 - Also rated a national master in the US Chess Federation
39:30 - He brings up the example of hyperinflation in Argentina
- This talk was less than a year after he had started Confinity (Dec '98), only ~8 months after merging with Elon Musk's X.com.

 - The talk seems to explain how he came to start Confinity. It seems he probably got the idea from working as a trader.
- It's interesting to see Thiel talking before he had achieved his first success.

- He has few instances of saying 'umm' or 'uhh' or 'you know' or 'like'.
- His hair is kept neat, he's got a collared shirt and jacket.
- He uses a lot of ten-dollar words like 'impute', 'conglomeration', 'extent', 'government actors', 'lest', 'apparatus', 'arise', 'consolidation', 'under the auspices of', 'countervailing forces', 'exacerbated'
- He throws out a lot of examples, which is one of the heuristics I use to judge if someone has done their homework on an issue.
49:09 - He talks about just about everybody having internet-enabled cellphones within 5 years.
49:50 - He talks about how governments will have to decide if they're going to regulate the communications network (which we now see happening).


2004 - News story on the book 'The PayPal Wars'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YEXBEq9vJU
- There's a short clip of 


2004.01.21 - Talk at Stanford Technology Ventures Program
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMater ... l?mid=1021
Speaker(s): Max Levchin , Peter Thiel

- the original concept of paypal was to allow for secure transmission of money between palm pilots via an IR link

- when trying to convince someone to move out to Palo Alto, have them come when it's really cold in their home state (e.g. January)
- they only hired friends at first
- they used a stunt to market their product: they transferred $3 million from the venture capitalists to their own account in front of news cameras

- how do you get customers?
1) advertising (billboards) - this wasn't cost effective b/c it had started to cost $100,000 for 1 month and each sign was only seen for 6-10 seconds
2) work with a big partner who will tell the world about your product; they met with mid-level execs at HSBC through a friend(?) and realized they wouldn't be able to help b/c the bank knew nothing about how to reach people (they were just getting into television advertising)
3) selling dollar bills for $0.85 - anyone who joined got $10; if you recruited someone you got an additional $10. they realized it was smarter b/c the cost per customer was $20, whereas the cost of online click ads was $60-100 per new customer.

paypal really started to take off b/c people selling stuff on ebay (another new company at that time) needed a way of paying each other.

they were burning $10 million a month in payments to new customers; rather than reduce the bonus they decided to raise more money
they merged with a competitor before looking for more money

their second round raised $100 million

section: "Coping with Fraud"
the guy on the right said that while paypal's business seems fairly simple on the surface, their real success is the ability to reduce fraud. there's a lot going on under the hood.
peter thiel described how paypal was in an arm's race with russian mobsters; as both paypal and the mobsters got more sophisticated, the mobsters got better at wiping out paypal's competitors, which made it impossible for paypal's customers to go anywhere else

section: "Viral Marketing"
Thiel - "if there's an easy formula, that's not a business you want to go into"

section: "Beating Competition"
Thiel - there are three important factors in UI: privacy, security, and convenience; if you get to 100% on any two of them the other one will be at 0%
- There was a whole academic circle of people who were writing papers about how digital cash would never work. lesson: just because a lot of people are saying something can't work doesn't mean they're right.

section: "Negotiating with Ebay"
Thiel - They were going to function as the cash registers to Ebay's Wal-Mart, but they were worried that Ebay would get some people on the inside to figure out how to handle the cash register portion themselves. Ebay had problems, though, dealing with the fraud-protection and everything else. They tried to create something, and it was secure, but it wasn't convenient, which is why it didn't work.
Thiel - They had a 1.5 year negotiating period, with 5 different rounds. The 4th round lasted 6 weeks straight, with many meetings having people throwing up numbers to back their proposed valuations



  • 2004.04.21 - Thiel talk @ Independent Institute - Innovation, Entrepreneurship and the Global Marketplace
    • 9:30 - In the spring of 2000 they had issues.
      • Customers were calling in non-stop.
      • Russian mobsters were stealing. One of the core innovations was coming up with a way to stop this.
    • 12:00 - The biggest challenge was government regulation.
      • The government didn't help with the fraud issues.
      • Arcane, unworkable banking systems.
      • They were spending $500k a month in legal fees to deal with regulatory issues.
    • 15:00 - They effectively became the cash register for eBay: 2/3 of their volume was on eBay, and 2/3 of eBay's volume was via PayPal.
    • 15:30 - In the middle of the IPO
      • The SEC evaluator assigned to their IPO was looking for a reason to reject their IPO.
      • Thiel had to track down the bank commissioner in LA in the middle of Mardi Gras.
    • 19:30 - The way politics works is to identify a common enemy. It's only possible to achieve political benefits against enemies. It isn't possible for goods.
      • 20:30 - There isn't any way to identify a common enemy at a global scale.
    • 23:40 - End of Thiel's opening remarks.
    • 53:13 - Beginning of the Q&A period
    • 58:19 - Q: What's your take on outsourcing?
      • A: He quotes Adam Smith. There are a lot of internal challenges, but if we are to remain competitive we need to outsource.
    • 1:03 - Q: How do you ___ something spiritual practice (??)
      • 1:05:10 - A: Something about the Enlightenment.
    • 1:06:04 - Q: Would you describe the US as neo-mercantilist?
      • 1:08:30 - A: Mercantilism doesn't make sense.
    • 1:09:10 - Q: What are the stranger ideas you come across?
      • A: The strangest were outside the US.
        • A startup in France was called "Z-Bank" and had monkeys on the webpage and had an even shorter workweek.
        • Who do you want to copy? Who do you want to emulate? (this quote is worth writing up)
        • At the tail end of the boom people were copying crazy things from other people.
  • 2007.11.01 - WSJ - Interview with Peter Thiel
    • he thinks old-media companies should just try to k
    • "I tend to invest in companies because I think the people are intelligent" ("he's creative, he works hard, and he's smart")
    • 05:29 - Q: What do you think is overhyped? What worries you?
    • 06:40 - There are two big questions Facebook has: 1) will the growth continue, and 2) can they figure out a revenue model that is more-targeted, and that's the holy grail.
    • 08:25 - I think people talk too much about there being a bubble. You can't have a bubble if there are no IPOs. The venture capital industry is still living in 1999.
    • 09:50 - We had a boom and a bust. And people remember the bust more than the boom, so people are dominated by fear.

 [in 4 parts]
- Observation: "if [the tech sector in Silicon Valley] is not enough to actually drive things in California, is it really enough to drive things in the US and the world as a whole?"
- Observation: People talk about exponential growth in technology and yet median wages have remained stagnant. [My response: but you can have the same wage and yet be able to purchase more with it; e.g. buying stuff at Wal-Mart, having a computer exponentially faster than 20 years ago, having tons of free stuff on the internet, having an iPod instead of a tape deck, having an iPad instead of a notepad]
- His Q: Why has there been such an incredible disconnect between our technological innovation and the changes in our standards of living [time spent working, etc.]?
- His Q: Do you really know that things will continue to grow the way it has over the past 100 years?
- Him: If there was no growth people would need to work until they were 80 and save 40% of their income.
- His Observation: We have 30-50 times as many scientists and yet he doesn't think we're progressing much faster than at that time.
- He thinks investing in Google is basically a bet against new search technology
- He thinks China's big strength over the US is that they think 30-40 years ahead
- In Part 4 he seems to agree with John T Reed that things are seriously messed up in the world economy and there is going to have to be a correction in how the markets view the value of the dollar; he calls it the "disconnect between the real economy and the financial economy". He says this in response to a question on why his fund performed poorly in a particular year; if you look it up on wikipedia it was because he bet that the dollar would drop in value, and it didn't. John T Reed is making the same prediction [he thinks people are going to stop lending the US money, at which point the US will have to inflate its currency or say "we can't pay you guys who we owe money to, so we're not going to even try", aka defaulting on its debt].

terms referred to in the speech:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession_ ... _recession
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VIX


  • 2008.12.05 - Hoover Institution - The U.S. Economy with Peter Thiel
    • "there's less volatility as a result of the shift to a service economy, but there's probably also less growth [because unlike a factory owner who can create a larger factory, it's harder to scale up your services] [I noticed the very same thing when thinking about the difference between working as a tutor and creating a factory]
  • 2009.04.13 - Cato Unbound - The Education of a Libertarian
    • "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible"
    • "Those who have argued for free markets have been screaming into a hurricane."
    • "The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron."
    • "I no longer believe that politics encompasses all possible futures of our world. In our time, the great task for libertarians is to find an escape from politics in all its forms (...) Because there are no truly free places left in our world, I suspect that the mode for escape must involve some sort of new and hitherto untried process that leads us to some undiscovered country; and for this reason I have focused my efforts on new technologies that may create a new space for freedom."
    • "Between cyberspace and outer space lies the possibility of settling the oceans."
      • What I don't get about seasteading is that countries already exert tremendous pressure outside their borders through the use of sanctions and thread of military force (drones, etc.). What leads Peter to think that that wouldn't also hold true for seasteading? I guess it depends on what exactly he wants to do offshore.

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...

  • 2013.07.01 - Effective Altruism Summit
  • 2014.01.16 - Churchill Club - World Chess Champ Magnus Carlsen, in conversation w/ Peter Thiel
    • You can find my full summary of the talk here: Magnus Carlsen
    • I'll just list Thiel's comments / questions here:
    • - This is all about asking Carlsen questions. Thiel asks great, great questions. Carlsen gives some great answers to Thiel's questions, some OK answers to audience questions.
    • The first few minutes are all 
    • 7:30 - Thiel: I was 7th in the US in the under-13 age category, but someone like Carlsen would be expected to beat me 100 times for every time I beat him (if we were both the same age).
    • 8:50 - Q from Thiel: When did you start playing chess? What year did you start to really improve?
    • 10:45 - Q from Thiel: At what point did you decide to focus on playing chess for a living?
    • 11:30 - Q from Thiel: Is there something you can tell us about the process by which someone becomes a great chess player?
    • 13:10 - Q from Thiel: Were there any chess players you particularly looked up to?
    • 14:30 - Q from Thiel: Has does one go about improving when you're at the level you're at today?
    • 15:30 - Q from Thiel: Do you think you have to learn chess as a kid, or can you learn it at any time in your life?
    • 16:10 - Q from Thiel: Is chess a sport, an art, or a science?
    • 17:00 - Q from Thiel: Is there any psychological aspect to chess?
    • 18:20 - Q from Thiel: Is there a physical fitness component? Do you find you play better if you're healthy?
    • 19:13 - Q from Thiel: How have computers changed chess in the last 30 years?
    • 21:50 - Q from Thiel: Have computers made chess more tactical?
    • 23:50 - Q from Thiel: You generally don't play against computers?
    • 24:38 - Q from Thiel: Do you learn the most from games you lose, or games you win?
    • 42:10 - Q from Thiel: How much do you think chess carries over to life?
      • 44:00 - Q from audience: 
      • 48:50 - Q from Thiel: Do you find you learn more from studying than from playing? Or is it a combination of both?
    • 50:30 - Q from Thiel: Where do you think chess is going to go in 20-30 years? Do you think it'll be fully solved?
    • 1:00:00 - Q from Thiel: Is playing too much blitz bad for your full game?


first few minutes are a profile of Thiel
05:00 - Q: How do we stop the NSA and other government agencies from tracking us?
A: We need to track what the government is doing.
- He says Snowden is both a traitor and a hero, and

07:00 - Q: Brave New World or 1984; which one is right?
A: He thinks BRNW is more likely (people controlled through pleasure)

08:15 - Q: Does a company like Google fear the government or vice versa?
A: The government is much bigger than Google. The government abuses are much bigger. The government has guns, Google does not have guns.

8:50 - Q: You talk about going beyond politics. You're not sure if the political system works anymore.
A: I have a schizo view on politics. It's very important, but it's also very hard to change.
He characterizes Bernanke's moves as money-printing.

10:15 - Q: When I first met all these Silicon Valley guys I thought they were liberals, but now I see them as more libertarian.

Glen Beck talks about how he hopes the gov messes with SV techies so they push back.

~13:00 - Thiel

13:45 - Q: Are entrepreneurs just in it for the money?
A: They're mostly in it for other reasons. [bs answer]

15:00 - Q: The people in the valley, what are their underlying principles?
A: They're generally politically naive. They're instincts are libertarian, but their politics end up liberal b/c that's what's cool.

16:00 - Q: How do we go from Marx / Che being cool to having Jefferson being cool? [bs phrasing of the question IMO, choosing the most controversial lib and the least controversial conservative]
A: I'm not sure.

18:00 - Thiel gives his common point about the masses fearing technology, with the popular movies being an example.

19:00 - Beck says something like "people are just tired of virtual everything"

20:00 - Beck rambles for a few minutes, I think he's talking about people being afraid of change

23:30 - !! Thiel talks about what replaces college. 

24:30 - Q: Do you know David Glertner?

24:50 - Thiel: I don't think there's a single answer. I don't think there's going to be a single alternative system.

25:20 - Q: You're talking about not having one system anymore. That gives people a lot of discomfort; I've been thinking about the shared experiences we used to have that are now gone. It seems everything is heading in that direction. Can you keep a culture together when it's fragmented that much.

A: I don't know.

27:30 - Thiel: One of the biggest political problems we have is political correctness. We need a diversity of ideas.

28:30 - !!! - Thiel: When people use the word "science" that's often a 'tell' like in poker, we have "social science" and "political science" but not "physical science". So I think "climate science" is a bit exaggerated.

30:00 - !!! - Beck points out that Thiel is a gay evangelical Christian. I didn't know he was Christian (or I forgot). That's bizarre.
Q: When people rip you apart from both sides of the political spectrum, how do you deal with that?
A: You try to ignore it.

31:30 - Thiel talks about his favorite interview question ("What's something that's true that most people don't agree with")

There's this interview question I always like asking people, "tell me something that's true that very few people agree with you on". It's a very hard question to answer. And it's not because people don't have answers, they actually have lots of answers to it. It's because they're uncomfortable answering it in the context of an interview, because the answer has to be something that the person asking you won't agree with, and we're always nervous about doing that. We always want to fit in, and this pressure to fit in is really powerful. 
32:50 - Q: How do we get libertarians and religious people to make peace?

Thiel talks for a few minutes about christianity

The last few minutes are them talking about how it's good to spend some time around people with different political opinions.

...

...


2014.09.10 - Why Is Peter Thiel Pessimistic About Technological Innovation?
http://danwang.co/why-is-peter-thiel-pe ... nnovation/
- good selection of quotes from talks Thiel has given
- also, good links to other talks by Thiel. I should merge that into this list.


2014.09.14 - BusinessInsider - Peter Thiel: Luck Is Just An Excuse For Not Working Hard Enough
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/peter-th ... z3RyPRl21m
http://www.businessinsider.com/peter-th ... ard-2014-9

...



2014.10.07 - Stanford - Lecture 5 - How to Start a Startup
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_0dVHMpJlo
- This seems to be the same set of ideas found in Zero to One.

- Yay! Andrew Rohn (a YouTube user) summarized the talk:

00:53 Talk topic: If you're starting a company you always want to found a monopoly. Hence, "competition is for losers". 

1:00 Capturing value: Basic idea is to create x dollars of value and then capture some percentage y of that. e.g. Airlines have a much bigger pie than Google but Google has larger profit margins and so does much better.
4:30 The advantages of a monopoly.
10:15 How Google lies about their search/advertising monopoly position.
13:27 How to build a monopoly: Start with a small market and expand. Go after a small market that is ignored. e.g. Amazon went from books to a general store.
18:46 Characteristics of a monopoly: 1) proprietary technology - a technology that's an order of magnitude better 2) network effects 3) economies of scale 4) branding
23:05 Last mover advantage: most value exists far in the future. We overvalue growth rates and undervalue durability. Will the company still be around in a decade?
28:00 History of innovation: Historically, scientists never make money off their inventions. Their value was never actually captured. 
38:00 Critically examining the concept of competition itself.

Q&A
43:03 "Which aspects of a monopoly does Google et al have?"
44:55 "What do you think of lean startups and its iterative methodologies?"
46:42 "You talk about last mover advantage but that doesn't imply a pre-existing market i.e. no monopoly to be had?"
48:00 "How do you recommend stop seeing competition as validation?"

...

  • 2016.10.31 - National Press Club - Peter Thiel speaks at The National Press Club

    • Takeaway: I honestly wasn't super-impressed with his arguments; I didn't feel like he had explored the argument-space (?) as much as he could have, and so there were times when he would dodge or not answer basic questions, which always looks badI thought looked bad (although many people may not notice). IMO the most impressive arguments are when someone takes an unusual position that you disagree with and turns out to have explored the area so well that they will already anticipate all of your objections, will explain your arguments in a way that you agree with, and then point out various assumptions that you hadn't paid attention to or facts you were unaware of that make your position not as strong as you initially thought. I feel like I've heard much-more-persuasive arguments when I was in the debate club. It reminded me of Elon Musk's product-unveils, where his focus seems to be on getting stuff done and out in the public view rather than forever-refining it. I've definitely had it happen to me where I'll put something out which I think sucks, just because I'm procrastinating about working on it and I just want it done with.




    • Expand

      0:00 - 2:30 - Generic intro from the interviewer
      3:30 - Baby boomers have less than a year's worth of savings.
      4:00 - Health bills are 10x other countries
      4:40 - Education costs are skyrocketing
      5:25 -
      5:40 - Government is wasting taxpayer money, incl. to fight wars.
      6:40 - Both major candidates are imperfect. Donald's comments were unacceptable.
      7:15 - People are voting for Trump because they see that the status quo government has failed.
      7:50 - Loud voices have said Trump's
      8:04 - "The Advocate" has said Thiel is not a gay man.
      8:40 - Trump gets some big things right.
      - Free trade has not worked well for all of America.
      9:30 - The trade deficit shows things are going wrong. The US is importing more than $500 billion every year.
      10:15 - Americans are voting for Trump because they're tired of war.
      - He describes Iraq as being in a state of "chaos". A bit of an exaggeration...
      10:40 - The Dems are more hawkish today than any period since Vietnam.
      11:00 - Calling for a no-fly zone over Syria is more reckless than invading Iraq. Since most of the planes over Syria are Russian, it would risk a nuclear conflict. [This seems very far-fetched.]
      12:00 - He talks about how denying painful realities are how bubbles are formed, and that baby boomers have been subject to bubbles over and over. Very...antagonistic.
      12:30-13:10 - He talks about how the establishment wanted it to be an election between the Bush and Clinton dynasties. He uses the '90s stock bubble and the '00s real estate bubble to draw attention to how long the Bush/Clintons have been in power.
      13:45 - Trump has questioned the core concept of American exceptionalism.
      16:00 - Wrap-up and switch to Qs.
      16:25 - Q:
      A: I have a strong bias for outsider candidates. I don't like the more-polished candidates because it does seem like they're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
      17:45 - Q: Isn't there something ot be said for voting for someone who actually knows how to get things done?
      A: We've been trying that for a while and it hasn't been working. They were asleep during the stock and housing bubbles. They've been making micro policy adjustments and letting massive bubbles inflate [NW: Doesn't seem totally fair to me, almost nobody saw those coming, including people in the private sector.]. Trump's argument that Hillary is experienced, but that it's the wrong experience, resonates with me a lot.
      18:50 - Q: Has your support of Trump affected your professional relationships?
      A: Friend
      19:10 - Q: Are there people in SV in the closet about supporting Trump?
      A: Yes, not a lot, but a small number.
      19:40 - Q: What have you learned about SV's appetite for political difference?
      A: It's more polarized than I realized. I didn't think it would be such a visceral reaction. It's suprising to me that it's beyond-the-pale to support Trump.
      20:55 - Q: Have your companies suffered any blowback?
      A: I don't think so. That would be even crazier. [NW: IDK, in war, anything goes.]
      21:45 - Q: Do you think SV understands America? Why the disconnect?
      A: SV has been extremely successful. And the people in SV want to tell the story that their personal success is linked to improvement for everyone in the country. But that's just often not true.
      23:20 - Q: How do you think the disconnect between SV and the rest of the country affects the products that get created in SV?
      A: [NW: He doesn't really answer the question; not from trying to dodge it, but just from going off-topic.] SV is very-much based in the world of bits. The rest of the country is based more in the world of atoms.
      25:25 - Q: Was the timing of your donation related to the Access Hollywood tape?
      A: No, I think the tape was in extremely poor taste. I didn't think as much about the donation as I should have. I didn't think money made much of a difference in this election. [NW: I'm getting a vibe from his answer that he did it to be provocative, didn't realize how controversial it would be, and doesn't want to admit it.]
      26:50 - Q: Are you concerned about what Trump's behavior says to younger Americans? IE setting a bad precedent.
      A: I think the sexual comments are being policed adequately [he seems to briefly allude to the Trump argument that 'that was years ago', which I never found convincing]. He says he's more concerned about behavior likely to lead to war, like behavior towards Russia. "I don't think Hillary has accused Trump of being overly-hostile to Putin." [NW: Hmm...he doesn't seem to see Russia as a threat. That seems odd to me, given that there's a lot of info on Wikipedia about all the shenanigans the Russian government has partaked in wrt their own constituents, their neighbors, etc.]
      28:10 - Q: Are you concerned about Trump's temperament wrt the nuclear codes?
      A: Hillary's policy is much more confrontational than Trump's.
      28:40 - Q: What about Trump's behavior towards other countries, like North Korea?
      A: I think NK is more of China's problem. I think China will keep them in line. [NW: IMO he doesn't address the central issue, which is that Trump HAS used provocative rhetoric towards other countries.]
      29:15 - Q: How would you rank Trump's economic plan against Hillary's?
      A: It rejects the bubble way of thinking. [NW: He seems to dodge the specifics of the question, ie he doesn't know the details of either plan.] Temperamentally, Trump's anti-regulation should help small businesses.
      31:25 - Q: Do Trump's bankruptcies worry you?
      A: I think he's been a successful businessman, I thin he's been a very successful real estate developer. [NW: ???] I think Trump's record is par for the course in the industry he was in. [NW: I'm not so sure about that.]
      - I think people are subject to too much of the wrong type of scrutiny when running for office, and it's one of the reasons we don't have more talented people running for office.
      33:13 - Q: You do believe the vetting process should be thorough, right?
      A: We have a less-talented group of people running today than we did 40 years ago. It's not clear that someone like JFK would be electable today.
      33:45 - Q: Has Trump given you private assurances about not rolling back LGBTQ rights?
      A: I haven't talked to him about that topic, but I think Trump's campaigning has indicated that he'd be much more progressive than previous Republican candidates.
      34:28 - Q: Do you support Trump's 'ban Muslims' proposal?
      A: I think the media is taking Trump literally, whereas Trump's supporters are not necessarily relying on that. [NW: I'm not sure about that.] I would like an immigration policy like Canada and Australia.
      36:15 - Q: Do you think you've set a dangerous precedent with the Gawker lawsuit?
      A: I don't think so. Let's look at the facts of the case. [He goes into details.] I think calling their behavior journalism is an insult to journalists.
      38:30 - Q: Do you think what happened to Gawker could happen to more-reasonable journalists?
      A: I think rich people shouldn't do that, and if they try I think they won't succeed. We were very careful to pick a case where the issue was over privacy and not libel.
      40:10 - Q: How'd you get connected with Hogan's lawyer, and why you did it secretly.
      A: I got involved over a number of years.
      - He brings up the point again about how Gawker was going after people they knew couldn't fight back.
      - I did it secretly because I wanted the focus to be on the facts of the case and not have Gawker hijack the narrative.
      - I don't like that we have these flash-mobs on the Internet that get targeted at very-specific individuals.
      - Some of the people who encouraged me were other people in the media, because they knew that Gawker was going after journalists.
      42:40 - Q: When did you set this in motion?
      A: It was around when the lawyer got involved with Hogan, so ~4-5 years ago. Around 2011 a friend convinced me that if no one stood up to Gawker, they'd continue to get away with their behavior.
      44:40 - Q: Trump has talked about changing the libel laws so he can sue journalists he doesn't like. What do you think about that?
      A: I don't think the libel laws need to be changed.
      45:50 - Q: The Hogan lawyer is now taking on other cases; he's becoming the go-to lawyer. What's your opinion on that?
      A: I think what actually matters in litigation is the end-game. Personally I wouldn't bring many of these cases because I don't think they'll win.
      47:30 - Q: What do you think are the problems with the news media? What would you do to fix them?
      A: A lot of the business models that the media has are not working as well as they used to. I'm not sure how to fix that. The newspapers were incredibly powerful monopolies a few decades ago, and the Internet eroded that.
      49:30 - Q: Do you think it's the responsibility of rich people to fund good journalism?
      A: I wouldn't want to compete with Jeff Bezos, ever. I think he's the toughest person in the world to compete with right now. I think it's possible that journalism will become more nonprofit-oriented, but I'm not sure that's the best thing for the industry.
      50:50 - Q: What do you think are the greatest threats to freedom today, and what do you think can increase people's individual freedoms?
      A: The ideological answer is always "the government". I'd like our focus to be on bringing our country in-line with other developed countries on things like the prison system, healthcare, etc.
      52:20 - Q: How does America fix the broken-government problems you brought up in your RNC speech?
      A: My ideal answer would be a smaller government that does more with less.
      - Libertarian thinking was super-super fringe in the '50s because back then people thought
      55:39 - Q: What's your future in politics?
      A: I think my future is going to be in the tech industry; that's what I enjoy, that's what I'm good at. I occasionally get involved in politics, but I don't want to make it a full-time thing.

...