🎧 24:47 - 26:06 (01:18)

The significance of self-belief and avoiding building undifferentiated commodity businesses is highlighted in a story about Luke Nozick's failed smart calendar app idea, which was in a saturated market. Peter emphasizes the lesson of minimizing competition for lasting value, which later influenced PayPal's success. This underscores the importance of sharing ideas and learning from failures in paving the way for future achievements.

🔒 Private note: Do not build undifferentiated commodity businesses

David Senra: The level of self-belief they have is amazing. We all believe that the others were going to build big things. Oh, and this is 1998, mind you. Over meals, they discuss the latest developments in technology, philosophy, education, startups, and their predictions for the future. And so one of them is this guy named Luke Nosek, who winds up saying, hey, I want to start my own company. Peter, you're interested in startup investing. Will you make an investment? They're going to work together for a long time. So it says just about everything was wrong with it. So Luke has this idea for like a smart calendar app. And then the reason I'm pulling this out is because if you listen to Peter speak or you read his book, he talks about over and over again, do not build. If you want to capture lasting value, you can't build undifferentiated commodity businesses he puts a a like a cheek like a pithy maxim on this he says competition is for losers again i think that's him being a way to hook that idea in your brain i mean and this this may be an influence where he learns from this uh so he says or he learned this uh just about everything was wrong with this idea teal later said uh it was a saturated e-calendar space that had like 200 companies that were competing for dominance. Thiel would later cite his smart calendar investment as a rich vein of learning, a failure whose lessons included minimizing competition that would pave the way for PayPal's success. And then I think this is also an example of the importance of just putting your ideas out there, even if

🎧 28:40 - 29:36 (00:55)

Founders must have someone they truly trust, not just people who are supportive when things are going well. Colleagues like Levchin and Teal, who had a strong and unique partnership, are crucial. Having a colleague allows individuals to have objective conversations during challenging times. The relationship between colleagues helps in organizing thoughts and is valuable in complex work.

David Senra: got a company with an angel investor working out of a broom closet, a CTO with a tiny apartment and no air conditioning, and a part-time CEO that has to commute 2,100 miles. And then it talks about the important relationship that Max and Peter had together. And it says, founders have to have somebody they can actually trust. There are so many people who are good at being good to you when things are great. But when shit's not really working, who do you objectively talk to? Levchin and Teal had each other. They burned so brightly and so differently. They are one of the best examples of a great partnership. And so the note I left myself on that page was Charlie said the same thing. And I think this is a really important point that they're picking up on the relationship between Peter and Max and what Charlie realized in his very long career. And Charlie said, everybody engaged in complicated work needs colleagues. Just the discipline of having to put your thoughts in order with somebody else is a very useful thing. So

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