How Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Peter Thiel tick differently

Burja, president of political danger consultancy Bismarck Evaluation, shared his ideas in a Wednesday episode of the Reside Gamers podcast. He describes “stay gamers” as individuals who step away from norms, improvise, and assume from first rules and says such people are instrumental in stopping societal stagnation.

Burja stated that upon listening to the frequent knowledge, Altman’s response is likely to be “sure, and,” whereas Thiel’s can be “no, however.” As for Musk, Burja stated, “I don’t assume Elon’s even listening.” 

Altman, he stated, will “see the place the passion and vitality lies, and it’s like, ‘Okay can we harness this and even additional develop it, even develop this and push it someplace actual.’ He sees cryptocurrencies, and he’s like, what about…a coin for the world that adjustments the world financial system to arrange for the post-scarcity future.”

He cited Worldcoin, which Altman cofounded a few years ago. The concept behind the startup is that folks will have the ability to show their personhood in a web-based world that may very well be quickly be overrun by AI bots. They’ll do that by scanning their irises utilizing a shiny metallic orb. If you’re scanned, verified, and onboarded, you’re given some proprietary crypto tokens, additionally known as Worldcoins. Later the system may change into a method to implement common primary earnings, an concept that may achieve traction if AI results in large-scale unemployment. Worldcoin, maybe not surprisingly, has sparked widespread privacy concerns.

Musk and making Tesla work

As for Musk, Burja continued, “Elon’s perspective is so first-principles-driven that whereas he does acknowledge what’s standard and never and might work with it, his choices as to what to do subsequent will not be tied in any respect to the mainstream however are following, I don’t know, like a know-how tree chart derived from primary physics or his favourite science fiction story.” 

Musk, he stated, will go straight into an trade that’s broadly thought of hopeless, too crowded, or too mature—equivalent to electrical automobiles or house—“however have it work this time.” 

To make one thing like Tesla succeed as Musk did, he stated, “you would need to consider it not phrases of automotive firms, however the uncooked vitality potential of batteries…the batteries maintain getting higher, so logically finally a automotive firm would work.”

Musk supplied insights into how he thinks about physics and engineering in a recent episode of the Lex Fridman Podcast, saying: “Physics is simply deepening one’s perception into how actuality works. Then there’s engineering, which is inventing issues which have by no means existed…As soon as you determine the principles of the universe…you possibly can then construct applied sciences which might be actually virtually limitless.” 

As for Thiel, Burja continued, “Thiel’s query is ‘How is the mainstream fallacious and what can we do about it to make it right?’ Which makes him a terrific know-how investor—a terrific technologist, but additionally a terrific investor.” 

Thiel, he stated, “is extraordinarily good at noticing when the frequent consensus is right or fallacious for mainly dangerous causes—and I do embody right right here—the place everytime you assume that even when persons are directionally making the fitting guess for the fallacious causes, there’s some, , monetary alpha there, there’s some chance of discovering that distinction.” 

Thiel, a conservative libertarian who’s donated closely to right-wing politicians, is thought for making daring swings on uncommon concepts. He was satisfied properly earlier than most individuals that funds would go digital and Bitcoin would take off, and he wrote a $500,000 test to a Harvard scholar on one thing known as “Thefacebook.” 

Subscribe to the CEO Day by day publication to get the CEO perspective on the largest headlines in enterprise. Sign up without spending a dime.