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- Peter Thiel’s advice to his younger self: “Value substance over status”
Peter Thiel’s advice to his younger self: “Value substance over status”
“One of the resolutions I came up with a number of years ago was to always value substance over status… I think if I’m honest about it, too much of [what I did] was driven by prestige and status—and not quite enough by the substance of really trying to learn things.”
Thiel continues on to explain that seven months into working at a prestigious law firm after graduating from Stanford Law School, he had a “quarter-life crisis” and quit.
“All you had to do was go through the front door, but peoples’ identities get so wrapped up in the things they compete for that it was inconceivable for people to actually do that.”
When he reflects on how he ended up in this situation, Thiel says:
“I think I had taken too many of these shortcuts of valuing what was prestigious and conventional over what I really wanted to do.”