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Trung Phan Profile picture
@TrungTPhan
Sep 21, 2021 • 15 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
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Just started Max Chafkin's new Peter Thiel book ("The Contrarian"). In anticipation of it, also re-read Thiel's 2014 Reddit AMA...tons of interesting answers.

THREAD: Here are 10 of them including on Elon, MBAs, Facebook, Bitcoin and Palantir.
1/ Thiel's first impression of Elon
2/ Thiel's biggest investing mistake was not doubling down on Facebook (he also sold 80% of stake shortly after FB's IPO, at about $20 a share...it's now >$350)
3/ Thiel's "ban" on hiring MBAs
4/ Thiel's rationale for investing in SpaceX
5/ Thiel's reaction to the movie "The Social Network"
6/ Thiel's own answer to his famous question: "What is one thing you believe is true that most people don't"
7/ Thiel on whether or not he'll invest in someone wearing a suit
8/ Thiel on whether the Thiel Fellowship was a success
9/ Thiel's 2014 bull case for Bitcoin was around payments
10/ And prob the funniest answer
11/ If you enjoyed that, I write threads on business and tech 1-2x per week.

Follow @TrungTPhan to catch them in your feed.

Here's a related one you might like on Elon and SpaceX:
12/ Here is the original AMA (and, yes, I know some of the answers reflect his takes from "Zero To One")

🔗reddit.com/r/IAmA/comment…

Def check out Max Chafkin's "The Contrarian":amazon.com/Contrarian-Pet…
13/ SIDE NOTE 1: An excerpt from "The Contrarian" updates the current Thiel & Zuck relationship:

🔗nymag.com/intelligencer/…
14/ SIDE NOTE 2: Another excerpt from "The Contrarian" describes the current relationship between Elon and Thiel:

"Musk thinks Peter is a sociopath and Peter thinks Musk is a fraud and braggart."

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More from @TrungTPhan

Trung Phan Profile picture
Feb 4
Norway discovered off-shore oil in 1969. It launched its sovereign wealth fund with $300m in 1996.

It’s since grown 6,000x to $1.8T or $327,000 per Norwegian (5.5m people).

The fund owns 1.5% of all global equities but, most impressively, had a UX designer put a real-time fund value tracker on its website landing page.
Norway’s SWF roughly is 65% equity, 25% bond, 10% real estate/infra (all global).

Unsurprisingly, its largest holding is Apple ($47B, or 1.4% of the entire company).

On a related note, here is my deep dive podcast on Steve Jobs and making of the iPhone: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/caf…
Norway spared no expense on its SWF website. Look at that carousel!
Read 4 tweets
Trung Phan Profile picture
Feb 4
never forget that episode of “Nathan For You” when he launched a fire detector product and tried to avoid import tariffs by turning it into a music device
One company that has been very good at navigating international food tariffs/regulations is Trader Joe’s. Built its dairy and wine businesses by finding workarounds.

I explain in this deep dive podcast on Trader Joe’s business history and strategy: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/caf…
Nathan’s “Blues” Smoke Detector Instrument lololol:

— “concert quality”
— “pre-tuned to F-sharp”
— “9 battery lets you jam for hours” Image
Read 4 tweets
Trung Phan Profile picture
Jan 29
wow, found a rare interview of a DeepSeek co-founder talking about his first AI startup exit a few years ago
Jian Yang is my 2nd fave Asian founder who created a food-related product.

The 1st is David Tran, who built Sriracha (great on hot dogs) into a $1B brand using $20k of gold bars he snuck out of Vietnam in milk cans.

I tell the full story in this podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/caf…
sold for $15m, what’s your excuse anon? Image
Read 4 tweets
Trung Phan Profile picture
Jan 17
Bookmarked a bunch of great David Lynch posts in past 24 hours (RIP to a legend):

1/ Martin Scorsese Tribute Image
2/ Lynch on ideas
3/ John Carpenter Tribute
Read 23 tweets
Trung Phan Profile picture
Sep 19, 2024
PayPal’s bland logo redesign was inevitable
Image
If you are the person that did the un-aligned letters for the previous eBay logo, please contact the research app team. We are huge fans of how un-aligned the “e” is with the “y”.Bearly.AI
This article offers up reasons for popularity of simple font logos (mostly Sans Serif):

— Easier to standardize ads across mediums
— Improves readability (especially on mobile)
— The “brand” matters more than the logo velvetshark.com/why-do-brands-…
Read 4 tweets
Trung Phan Profile picture
Sep 1, 2024
Berkshire Hathaway board member Chris Davis once asked Charlie Munger why Costco didn’t drop the membership card.

Let anyone shop and raise prices by 2% (still great value), thus making up for lost membership fees (and more).

Munger said the card is important filter:

▫️“Think about who you’re keeping out [with a membership card]. Think about the cohort that won’t give you their license and their ID and get their picture taken.

Or they aren’t organized enough to do it, or they can’t do the math to realize [the value]…that cohort will have a 100% of your shoplifters and a 100% of your thieves. Now, it’ll also have most of your small tickets.

And that cohort relative to the US population will probably be shrinking as a % of GDP relative to the people that can do the math [on Costco’s value].”▫️

I have a membership but have been guffing on the math for a few years tbh. They keep telling me to upgrade from Gold to Business but I’m too lazy (even if the 2-3% Cash Back on Business pays back after a few trips).

This is a long way of saying Costco’s membership price hike effective today — its first in 7 years — is annoying but when I decide to do the math in a few months, it’ll be worth it.

***

Chris Davis’ remarks from this episode of The Knowledge Project: open.spotify.com/episode/6fJYHF…Image
Anyway, here is something I wrote about Costco’s $9B+ clothing business my affinity for Kirkland-branded socks and Puma gym shirts. readtrung.com/p/costcos-9b-c…
Two notes:

▫️Meant “Executive” (not “Business”) membership
▫️Chris Davis was doing a pure thought experiment. Costco membership obvi high margin (on~$5B a year) and accounts for majority of Costco profits. Retail margin is tiny on ~$230B of annual sales (Costco would need like another $150B+ from letting anyone shop to make up membership profits)Image
Image
Read 5 tweets

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