Silicon Valley Investor Peter Thiel Wins Bet on Trump

http://www.wsj.com/articles/silicon-valley-investor-peter-thiel-wins-bet-on-trump-1478708226

by digital55 • 10 years ago

82 71 10 years ago

PayPal co-founder Max Levchin on Thiel: “He bets contrarian not when he knows he’ll win, but when he knows that his odds of winning are much better than most people think.”

Makes you wonder with all of Palantir's massive data-mining if Thiel knew something the public didn't.

1457389• 10 years ago

You don't need the NSA to calculate that a couple million in donations (with added free publicity) is worth a shot at multi-billion-dollar public sector systems integration and analytics projects.

Lordarminius3• 10 years ago

Peter Thiels entire philosophy is based on taking action based on insight/knowledge other people do not have, and avoiding the detrition of marketplace competition at all cost (see Zero to One).

I'd wager its not an 'if' but a certainty that he knew something few others did.

jgrahamc4• 10 years ago

Makes you wonder with all of Palantir's massive data-mining if Thiel knew something the public didn't.

You didn't need Palantir to see the Trump result coming.

hellogoodbyeeee• 10 years ago

Oh come on. Anyone using a data driven approach to predict the election was putting money on Hillary. If Palantir had data to predict a trump win, then that would be interesting to hear about.

tedunangst4• 10 years ago

Last week the Times had Trumps chances at about 7%. If you think the odds are more like 35%, that's 5x better. Still a long shot, but not impossible.

randomgyatwork3• 10 years ago

I wonder if the media is incompetent or liars...

randomgyatwork3• 10 years ago

I feel like if you were paying attention, but avoiding mainstream media this result isn't so much of a surprise.

Kinnard• 10 years ago

Why?

at-fates-hands2• 10 years ago

> when he knows that his odds of winning are much better than most people think.

This is the classic gambler's approach to betting. Attempt to reduce the odds to a reasonable level where you can minimize losses and maximize your profits.

If you were paying attention to more objective polls, you would've known the mainstream media polls they were using were off. So much so, that Clinton started campaigning in red states and there were reports she wanted to make this a "historic" win. As in, it's not good enough to just win, she wanted to rub it in the faces of the Republicans (you know, because that's always good for bringing the country together - right?) when she did win.

- So he knew the polls were off.

- Then he probably knew there was a feeling of unrest considering the numbers Trump was getting. Not just in the primaries where he set several records for turnout and delegates.

- Then he probably heard about the Allan Lichtman's prediction that Trump would win based on the enthusiasm he saw in the primaries. It was greater for Trump then it was for Clinton. Add in the margin of victory in the primaries was greater for Trump then Clinton and he said because of that, the real voter enthusiasm is with Trump, not Clinton.

So here you have three things most people on the Left didn't want to hear. He also could probably see the media had gone 110% to shill for Clinton. Tamping down her email scandals, promoting the polls that say she's way ahead. If you listen to say Rush Limbaugh, or Hannity or Beck, you'd know it wasn't all rainbows and unicorns.

So he hedged his bet and put his money on Trump given the above information.

drzaiusapelord• 10 years ago

So he knew the polls were off.

This is my thinking as well. Towards the end Nate Silver kept upping Trump's chances and other pollsters were baffled by Nate's changes. Nate kept arguing that due to curring polling methods, current models, the lack of young turnout, and a lot of disenfranchised voters coming out that Trump was doing better than he seemed. There was no "liberal media conspiracy" but the model changes you needed to make in what was an extremely oddball election year. Note, the pollsters that got Trump wrong got the last few elections right or wrong but within a respectable margin of error, so from a question of bias, the conspiracy theories just don't hold. Same with the Brexit, the pollsters just didn't see that silent majority voting yes.

Nate obviously didn't change his model enough but he certainly saw the winds of change here and clearly other people like Thiel did too. Also, being a libertarian there's really no reason for him to support a Democrat anyway, so if he's going to play this game he's going to pick the GOP candidate.

He also could probably see the media had gone 110% to shill for Clinton.

I didn't see this. Instead, I certainly saw the media play both sides as being less terrible than they truly were. I think there's a narrative of "oh they're just like each other so it'll be tight" and promoting a moral equivalence of "questionable email server use is just as bad as saying celebrity lets you grab women by their crotches with impunity" that sells ad impressions.

chubot5• 10 years ago

I think this sums it up, and whether you agree with it or not, is a valid distinction to make:

Describing the presidential campaign, Mr. Thiel said it was "between one candidate who says everything is more or less fine, or it’s as good as it can be. And then another one who says we’re on the Titanic, it’s about to sink. And so I prefer the second one."

Now, it's perfectly reasonable to question if Trump has an actionable plan to make things better. I question that too.

I also find it hard to ignore his remarks about ethnicity and women, but it seems clear to me that the media inadvertently helped Trump by screaming bigot, racist, sexist, etc. as loud as possible. When you call everything racist, it dulls the meaning of the word, and ends up hiding real racism.

Another thing I appreciate from this election is that people don't like being told who to vote for. I didn't appreciate the shrill tone of every single news outlet and media source I turned to (and I barely watch news and didn't follow the election until very late.)

I thought 538 would have "objective" coverage, but I didn't like that Nate Silver couldn't resist inserting petty personal insults about Trump in his articles. Even guys like Louis CK, Howard Stern, and Stephen Colbert turned out to have surprisingly little sense of humor about it.

fiveoak• 10 years ago

Yep, and by calling Trump a bigot, racist, sexist, etc, they're inadvertently calling his supporters the same thing as well, causing a lot of them to just become more entrenched in their support for Trump.

feelix• 10 years ago

The thing that bothers me both about Brexit and Trump is that the mainstream narrative is that it's about closed borders, racism, misogyny, etc.

There is no evidence to suggest that the largest proportion of the voters for these things were motivated by that. One side loses, then they scream racist/bigot at the other side and then because it's the mainstream media those labels stick around. That does not help anyone and does indeed only widen the divide.

Melk• 10 years ago

I know the feeling. Trump supporters inadvertently called me crooked, corrupt, elitist, a liar, a murderer, a bitch, a cunt, and a nasty woman. And I'm not even a woman.

TYPE_FASTER• 10 years ago

Describing the presidential campaign, Mr. Thiel said it was "between one candidate who says everything is more or less fine, or it’s as good as it can be. And then another one who says we’re on the Titanic, it’s about to sink. And so I prefer the second one."

Because saying that we are about to sink will attract more votes? So Thiel goes with Trump because he thinks he will win, not because he thinks Trump would be the better president? So Thiel knows where to invest his money?

That's one way of looking at the presidential election, I guess.

chubot5• 10 years ago

You don't think anybody in the country honestly believes that it's like the Titanic about to sink?

I don't happen to believe that, but I believe Thiel and others honestly believe it.

I would consider the possibility that there are things you don't understand here. Trump's victory is something that should cause people to reflect. It was certainly very surprising to me. Along those lines, Hillary and Obama's remarks about giving Trump a chance were gracious and sorely needed after such a noisy election.

ZeroGravitas3• 10 years ago

And then another one who says we’re on the Titanic, it’s about to sink. And so I prefer the second one.

I'd check how long that person had been claiming it was about to sink first. In Trump's case that goes back to the Reagan era.

danso3• 10 years ago

Via the Washington Post's media columnist: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-media-did...

I’m no fan of Peter Thiel, the billionaire who put Gawker out of business by bankrolling a lawsuit by Hulk Hogan, the professional wrestler. In fact, I find him appalling.
But when he spoke recently at the National Press Club, he said something that struck me as quite perceptive about Donald Trump.
“The media is always taking Trump literally. It never takes him seriously, but it always takes him literally,” Thiel said. Journalists wanted to know exactly how he would deport that many undocumented immigrants, or exactly how Trump would rid the world of the Islamic State. We wanted details.
But a lot of voters think the opposite way: They take Trump seriously but not literally.
They realize, Thiel said, that Trump doesn’t really plan to build a wall. “What they hear is, ‘We’re going to have a saner, more sensible immigration policy.’ ”
Trump, quite apparently, captured the anger that Americans were feeling about issues such as trade and immigration.

Thiel was completely correct on this. It's a sad(der) version of the stereotype of journalism just being uncritical transcribers of the powerful, except journalists were doing it (ostensibly) to hurt Trump.

It's a great example of the damage of unconscious bias. If someone I love tells me they'll climb the highest mountain and swim the widest ocean to make me happy, I'll love them even though I know that's a literal lie. If someone I hate tells me the sky is blue, I still look for a way to pedantically correct them.

I know it's popular for journalists to be opinionated and fight for the truth and all, but I can't help but think that if journalists even tried to just believe in that impossible ideal of idealism, more of them would have come to empathize with Trump's supporters -- not the wacky crazy ones that make for good TV -- and see Trump's promises as a signal of priorities, not a literal fulfillment that Americans want.

yongjik• 10 years ago

Maybe Trump won't build a wall, but voting for a candidate promising X while thinking "There's no way he will actually do X" is a risky decision.

Back in 2007, South Korean candidate Lee Myung-Bak won presidency while prominently selling the concept of "Grand Korean Peninsular Canal", a construction project involving building a canal diagonally through the Korean peninsula, crossing mountain ranges ~1km high. It made zero economical sense (just take a look at the map), and was widely derided by opponents.

Many of his supporters still voted for him thinking "Come on, there's no way he would actually do that!"

Well, he almost did it in the names of "Four River Restoration Project", an Orwellian-named $20B project that kept the major part of the canal plan, plastering Korea's rivers with pointless dams, which inundated riverbanks, increased flood damage, decimated freshwater ecosystem, and polluted so much riverwater that you can't use it even for farming.

Trump is now free to realize any of his promises as he sees fit, and no one will be able to say "American's didn't approve this", because he did promise them and then won based on those promises. It will be a fun ride for him.

buckbova• 10 years ago

A bill was voted for and passed a decade ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Fence_Act_of_2006

Maybe some do want to build the wall.

danso3• 10 years ago

Maybe Trump won't build a wall, but voting for a candidate promising X while thinking "There's no way he will actually do X" is a risky decision.

I think Thiel might Trump a little too much credit in the planning, just because I feel that Trump seems erratic, like when he lied about the NFL commissioner sending him a letter about the debate schedule. Not so much that he lied but -- why would you lie about such an obviously disprovable thing that is of little consequence anyway? [0] So for all we know, maybe he doesn't even hate immigration that much.

On the other hand, Trump is always talking about how good he is at making deals. One of the most well-known parts of psychology when bartering is demanding a too-high/low price to set the others' expectations, and Trump could just have been doing that. But either way, he was making a clear call that he prioritized limited immigration and free trade in a way that Clinton only talked about in politically pleasing ways. I always thought it was annoying how he bragged about his deals, but if this was his mindset, then I'm impressed.

But my Trump will be Trump complacency is a little mitigated by the fact that we now also have a Republican-controlled congress, and very soon, a Republican-controlled SCOTUS. So the scenario of Trump actually doing the crazy things he promised is no longer just a far hypothetical.

[0] http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-denies-writing-letter-...

mullingitover• 10 years ago

Trump is now free to realize any of his promises as he sees fit, and no one will be able to say "American's didn't approve this"

Well, the majority of American voters didn't approve this.

up_and_up2• 10 years ago

They realize, Thiel said, that Trump doesn’t really plan to build a wall. “What they hear is, ‘We’re going to have a saner, more sensible immigration policy.’ ”

I totally disagree, they absolutely believe that he wants to build a wall and that Mexico will pay for it. See "End Illegal Immigration Act" outlined here: https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/_landings/contract/O-TRU-102...

Peter Thiel is naive to think this is not literal.

danso3• 10 years ago

But that's still on paper. Thiel may be wrong in that a wall gets built anyway. But he seems right in predicting that people who prioritize immigration policy will vote for Trump even if they know he can't fulfill his promise, because some reform is better than nothing. I don't think that prediction in itself is genius, but yeah, too many in the media were too self-assured that only wall-building extremists would vote for Trump, thus, leaving Clinton with the majority.

eeimo• 10 years ago

Thiel was completely correct on this.

Well, it supposedly was Salena Zito who "is board member of the Center for Media and Public Policy at the Heritage Foundation, and has worked for the campaigns of George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Rick Santorum" who was correct since she came up with it.

http://www.theatlantic.com/author/salena-zito/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/trump-ma...

Personally I'm not sure on the state of the US when it's controversial to ask someone with little political experience how they are going to accomplish the things they say. I thought part of the reason to not go with a politician was so they would actually do things like keep their promises?

Yhippa• 10 years ago

When Mr. Trump speaks of building a wall on the Mexican border, Mr. Thiel said, “what [voters] hear is we’re going to have a saner, more sensible immigration policy.”

I have no idea what to make of what Mr. Trump said. Am I to take him literally? Was this just posturing and he doesn't plan to do something like this? I have no idea.

up_and_up2• 10 years ago

It is literal:

See "End Illegal Immigration Act" outlined here: https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/_landings/contract/O-TRU-102...

kzisme2• 10 years ago

Oh yes - I don't have the source right now, but there's a long list of things he plans to accomplish on the VERY first day of the job.

kzisme2• 10 years ago

For the lazy:

Fully-funds the construction of a wall on our southern border with the full understanding that the country of Mexico will be reimbursing the United States for the full cost of such wall; establishes a two-year mandatory minimum federal prison sentence for illegally re-entering the U.S. after a previous deportation, and a five-year mandatory minimum federal prison sentence for illegally re-entering for those with felony convictions, multiple misdemeanor convictions or two or more prior deportations; also reforms visa rules to enhance penalties for overstaying and to ensure open jobs are offered to American workers first.

internaut2• 10 years ago

Repost.

Having watched and listened to Thiel for several years now, I came up with a pet hypothesis I call 'The Wolfian World' that I feel describes what's going on more accurately than the newspapers.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12884413

Silicon Valley Investor Peter Thiel Wins Bet on Trump

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