Post TieCon highlights - Peter & Elon
So I spent some time out at the TieCon show (www.tiecon.org) this past weekend.
It’s billed as the world’s largest trade show for entrepreneurs. The highlights were Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, both ex-Paypalers. Both Peter and Elon are undeniably brilliant. There were some other interesting panels, and the panelists that impressed included Joanne Bradford of SpotRunner
, and Dave McClure, Master of 500 Hats (Dave also led a panel at the Web 2.0 Expo).
Peter described his framework for investing. He described it as a combination of two factors: ‘good fundamentals’ + ‘being out of favor’. For example, when he invested in Facebook back in 2003, Friendster had just crashed in burned. So Facebook was not an ‘obviously good’ investment. If something is ‘in favor’ - especially in the Silicon Valley echo chamber, there will likely be too much competition, reducing returns for everyone.
Elon is on his way to going 3 for 3 with his latest ventures - Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity. Terrific stuff.