Peter Thiel's Competition Is for Losers
1. Thiel argues that in order to create a valuable company, you need to
A. create something of value and capture some fraction of the value you created
B. imitate the US airlines industry because it's such a huge market
C. understand how to be incrementally better than competitors
2. According to Thiel, more stable longer term businesses tend to appear in:
A. perfectly competitive industries
B. monopoly-like situations
3. Thiel argues that companies tell "lies" about themselves. Which of the following is an example of that "lie?"
Hint: only one of these choices is a lie
A. Companies in highly competitive markets argue that they are doing something unique
B. a non-monopoly describes her market as being incredibly large
C. monopoly-like companies argue that they need more regulation
D. companies in competitive industries argue that they need to be regulated less
4. According to Thiel, which of the following terms would Google be LEAST likely to use to describe itself?
A. a technology company
B. an advertising company
C. a search engine company
5. A "big mistake" that startups make is:
A. trying to become like a monopoly
B. trying to sell only Pez dispensers or beanie babies
C. going after a huge market on day one
D. going after too small a market
6. Thiel claims that if you copy people like Mark Zuckerberg or Larry Page, you
A. risk ending up with a monopoly-like company
B. are likely to enjoy similar success because of a proven pathway to growth
C. haven't learned anything from them
7. Each of the following is an example of how a company made a 10x improvement, EXCEPT
A. Amazon selling books online
B. opening a British restaurant in Palo Alto
C. eBay processing payments electronically
D. invention of the iPhone
8. Cleantech "failed" because
A. founders failed to raise enough private equity
B. the technologies weren't proven
C. the market the companies focused on was too large
D. there were too many good ideas
9. Elon Musk's (founder of Tesla and SpaceX) successes can be best attributed to:
A. his years of experience in the aerospace industry
B. his ability to successfully vertically integrate the pieces of his companies
C. his 10x improvements to rocket science
D. the 10x break-throughs he achieved in battery power
10. The title for Peter's talk - Competition is for losers - is provocative because
A. every competition has winners and losers in a zero-sum game
B. we always think of losers who are not good at competing
C. no one wants to talk about monopolies
D. Peter Thiel says so