> The evidence suggests that Thiel’s bias worked: the fund was an early investor in companies like Napster, Facebook and Spotify. 'Maybe we still would have avoided these bad investments if we had taken the time to evaluate each company’s technology in detail,' he writes. 'But the team insight—never invest in a tech CEO that wears a suit—got us to the truth a lot faster.'
Or, maybe Peter Thiel just has a good intuition for investments and could tell the potential success of these companies without digging too deep into the technology? Go back a generation: do you think the founders of Microsoft, Oracle, Amazon, Apple, etc, went into pitches looking like hipsters? Heck, Jeff Bezos still wears a suit.[1] What kind of results would this filter have had when the prevailing fashion trend wasn't to dress down?
Was going to say definitely, but there are actually some pictures in there with Woz in a tie. Jobs bow tie, though, in those pictures, is definitely a sartorial mark of non-conformity for that era.
I don't know about that B&W bowtie pic, but that color pic is from the Apple IIc launch in 1984. Apple IPO'ed in 1980, and was already making over a billion dollars in revenue by 1984. And the bowtie is a bit non-conformist, but Jobs wasn't exactly dressed like a hipster even in 1984: http://everystevejobsvideo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/St.... And I don't know how non-conformist that bow-tie really is. Here's Justice John Paul Stevens at his Senate confirmation hearing in 1975: http://media.npr.org/assets/news/2010/04/09/stevens1-3a512da....
Or, maybe Peter Thiel just has a good intuition for investments and could tell the potential success of these companies without digging too deep into the technology? Go back a generation: do you think the founders of Microsoft, Oracle, Amazon, Apple, etc, went into pitches looking like hipsters? Heck, Jeff Bezos still wears a suit.[1] What kind of results would this filter have had when the prevailing fashion trend wasn't to dress down?
[1] And frankly, I think he styles all over most tech CEO's: http://images.politico.com/global/2013/09/04/130904_jeff_bez...