Peter Thiel: “disruption” is “one of the most horrible, overused buzzwords”

“I don’t think that your goal in starting a company should be to disrupt or destroy a big company. Your goal is to create a successful company. ”

He continues:

“And this is why I really dislike ‘disruption’ as a buzzword. It is one of the most horrible, overused buzzwords. A disruptive person is someone who looks for trouble and finds it… Napster was a very disruptive company that set out to destroy the music industry… and a year later it was shut down by the government… It's not constructive. I think one really shouldn’t take one’s bearings from destroying existing companies.”

He argues that he and the PayPal team didn’t really aim to disrupt:

“PayPal did create a new payment solution. On some level it constrained what the card companies like Visa, Mastercard, and Amex could do. On some level it extended what they could do. So they didn’t like us that much, but it wasn’t that hostile. It was not a zero-sum disruption dynamic.”

He concludes:

“I do think that in a lot of these areas, there’s room for growth and your success doesn’t require large existing companies to fail.”

Full video: General Assembly "Zero to One: A Discussion with Peter Thiel" (Feb 2015)