If someone asks you “what do you do?” within seconds of meeting you — don’t be annoyed. Smile. You’ve just identified a transactional player. Instead, give them the lowest status answer. Then drop your highest IQ insights for the rest of the conversation. This breaks brains.

Thiel Fellowship may be the greatest startup accelerator ever

It’s pretty well documented that small infractions lead to larger infractions over time. Agency without virtue is soulless.

i learned something about agency when, on my second date with my now-girlfriend, i mentioned feeling cold and she about-faced into the nearest hotel, said she left a scarf in a room last week, and handed me the nicest one out of the hotel’s lost & found drawer

Given a child like this who loves learning, most school districts will prevent them from learning for the next five years so that their classmates can catch up

Dear “15-18 yo founder”s sending me DMs, don’t. Go and hug your parents, fall in love, eat chocolate cereal for breakfast, read poetry. Nobody will give you back these years. And sure, do your homework and learn math and code if that feels fun. But stop building SaaS and hustling. Even if career is what you are optimizing for, this is not the way. You need deep education that will withstand automation. You need to sit with linear algebra and probability theory and philosophy and literature. It won’t get you go viral on X but it’ll make you whole. And mute all the SF performative assholes. Oooops sorry this last one was a note to self.

The CFO of Pixar once asked how our middle schoolers learned to self-direct. The answer was not what he expected. This was years before I founded The Socratic Experience, when I created Montessori middle school programs in Palo Alto twenty-five years ago. Half the students had been in Montessori since birth, and the other half came from public schools. No matter how intelligent and well-behaved the public school kids were, they could not be as self-directed as the Montessori kids, at least for the first semester, and sometimes it took a full year. The CFO of Pixar visited as a prospective parent. Seeing the functioning middle school in its second year, he asked, “How do you do this? This is exactly what I want my employees to be doing.” The “secret” was to raise children with the level of agency you see in Montessori videos and then surround them with a substantially influential peer group that incoming students could learn from. One of the most remarkable things about the Montessori middle school children: • They initiated, organized, and played games together • They resolved conflicts and disagreements on their own • Many girls from public schools arrived jaded and guarded, but gradually became warm, open, and authentic after a semester All of these were cultural transformations, a set of norms that transferred from the Montessori-native kids to newcomers as they became enculturated. How much of a student’s long-term success do you think depends on the school culture they grow up in?

I want to host a dinner in SF where no ones allowed to talk about AI

Sharing an update on @figma: we publicly filed our S-1 with the SEC today, and have applied to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “FIG.” figma.com/blog/s1-public

Why haven't you been on every single important podcast in the world as one of the world's leading experts for ultra-high potential talent recognition? I would listen to every episode!

Who wants to go in on buying this 57-bedroom seminary in Cupertino? It's got amazing bones!

Could someone who is a professional talent picker (VC, scout, etc) Give a sincere answer to why are exceptional people so rare to find? I feel like when you find someone who’s good, they are so much better than the next marginal person it’s crazy!!

Things I am changing generationally: My kids will stay at home and save $ while working until they have a really good reason to leave home. My property and wealth will pass on to my kids long before I die. It’s much better to give them a head start than to have them be middle aged before inheriting. All of my kids will be forced to invest X/week. Non-negotiable. This may require a two hour conversation with a calculator. The emphasis is on dynasty. They are working together as family to get ahead. I help them, they help each other. Money, prospects, network, etc. Potential marriage partners must be vetted b me and my wife. Nobody is going to rent property, ever.

Founders who share monthly updates with full metrics gain the most trust from their investors, and certainly have higher likelihood to get more capital later. It’s amazing how few do this.

the real measure of wealth is how many problems you can solve by calling one of your friends

Rejected from @ycombinator - good time to reflect on those who believed in me. Thank you @Meta, @localhostHQ, @Lvlupvc and @1517fund for pushing education forward 🤝

Vinay wired $1.7M to his parents just before selling Loom. said it’s the coolest thing money has ever bought him.

Thiel Fellowship may be the greatest startup accelerator ever

Aaron Swartz would/should be 38 years old today.

Show. Don't tell. Mach Industries.

In 1968, George Land tested 1,600 children's creativity using a NASA-designed assessment. Results: 98% of 5-year-olds scored as creative geniuses, dropping to 30% at age 10, 12% at 15, and just 2% among adults. They were programmed out of creativity by conformity.

One of the biggest lies in startup land is that fundraise success is directly related to how good your deck is Sure, a clear well laid out deck is great but it is very low on the ranking of most important items

Contrary to the libelous text below, Peter was grinning from ear to ear when we approached him to leave the foundation and start 1517 based on our indisputable success with the Thiel Fellowship. "We are going to do this! I'll be an anchor."

On April 23, we're opening applications for our $100k investment for garage science startups. More info in the link below.