Any big market is a bad choice, and a big market already served by competing companies is even worse. This is why it’s always a red flag when entrepr… - Peter Thiel

Startups operate on the principle that you need to work with other people to get stuff done, but you also need to stay small enough so that you actually can.

I think the future is something that always has to be thought of in relatively concrete terms — and it has to be different from the present ... Only something that's different from the present and very concrete can have any sort of charismatic force. Looking at Western Europe, I would say, there are ... basically three plausible futures on offer. Number one is Islamic sharia law, and if you're a woman you get to wear a burqa. Number two is totalitarian AI à la China, where the computers track you in everything you do — all the time — and that's kind of creepy. So the Eye of Sauron, to use the Lord of the Rings reference, is watching you at all times. And then the third one is hyper-environmentalism, where you drive an e-scooter and you recycle. And even though I'm not a radical environmentalist ... if those are the three choices, I think you can understand why the Green Movement is winning — because those are the three visions of the future we have. And the challenge on the conservative or libertarian side is to offer something that is a picture of the future that's different from these two dystopian and one somewhat stagnant one.

Competition can make people hallucinate opportunities where none exist.