But Peter Thiel specifically did none of these things. He initially got rich via PayPal, which simplified safe online payments, which is clearly something people wanted at that time and not particularly immoral. You might say it was progress.
Is Facebook purely harmful though, or is there also progress made in connecting people together?
And in any case Thiel doesn’t need to have a 100% perfectly “focused-on-your-definition-of-progress-only” track record to be worth listening to. Just apply that standard consistently and see how many people can fulfill it.
OTOH, building something like PayPal alone will make a lot of other people interested in what you’ve got to say. You cannot deny that someone who achieves such a feat when no one else does (besides Elon Musk) has some special insight. But the fact that you do deny that seems like it’s rooted in some form of subjective dislike.
Edit: just read your reply to sibling comment, confirmed my suspicion here.
