I read "zero-to-one" a couple of years ago, so my apologies for my mediocre recall here; but I think that Thiel's criticism of biotech had nothing to do with people being less clever and a lot to do with "wasting" your most creative years earning your credentials, such that by the time you finally are in a position to "do" biotechnology - with access to lab resources, etc. - you've been fully domesticated into, perhaps, institutional mediocrity. This could be a partly reconstructed memory, since Thiel is also famous for encouraging students to skip college and "start doing" instead, which is clearly more doable from a laptop than from a fully-fledged development laboratory.
Yeah totally—I think there was a recent podcast episode where he says a bit more about “talent” in bio specifically, there’s not much in the book outside of the section i quote. I think a lot of the discussion recently has been projecting about what we *think* talent means and why it’s important (clever quantitative reasoning) vs what I think he’s actually been saying about how to build businesses that can innovate on technology. The credentials/time it takes to be proficient with biology and the culture around that is another complicated part of the story
The biotechnology field was founded by distinguished physicists, including at least one Nobelist - arguing that biotech does not attract smart people seems like ignorance of its history.
I read "zero-to-one" a couple of years ago, so my apologies for my mediocre recall here; but I think that Thiel's criticism of biotech had nothing to do with people being less clever and a lot to do with "wasting" your most creative years earning your credentials, such that by the time you finally are in a position to "do" biotechnology - with access to lab resources, etc. - you've been fully domesticated into, perhaps, institutional mediocrity. This could be a partly reconstructed memory, since Thiel is also famous for encouraging students to skip college and "start doing" instead, which is clearly more doable from a laptop than from a fully-fledged development laboratory.
Yeah totally—I think there was a recent podcast episode where he says a bit more about “talent” in bio specifically, there’s not much in the book outside of the section i quote. I think a lot of the discussion recently has been projecting about what we *think* talent means and why it’s important (clever quantitative reasoning) vs what I think he’s actually been saying about how to build businesses that can innovate on technology. The credentials/time it takes to be proficient with biology and the culture around that is another complicated part of the story
The biotechnology field was founded by distinguished physicists, including at least one Nobelist - arguing that biotech does not attract smart people seems like ignorance of its history.
I don’t think skill in physics should be the standard by which we judge intelligence :)
True, but the fact undermines the premises of those whose argument you criticize.