I find Thiel’s writings too narrative-driven. Persuasive, but hardly succinct. Somehow, geographical discoveries, scientific progress and ideas of social justice all fit under the umbrella term “secrets” and… there is some common pattern underlying our failure in each of these aspects? Or is one the cause of the other? What am I supposed to learn from these paragraphs? Thiel himself seems very “indefinite” with his critique.
Incrementalism is bad, but biotech start-ups should nonetheless “refine definite theories” instead of random experimentation? Isn’t “refining definite theories” a prime example of incrementalism, and a strategy you would expect more out of established institutions anyway? Seems like biotech companies can only do wrong. You could also easily argue “refining definite theories” is an example of indefinite thinking because instead of focusing on developing a concrete product, you’re just trying to keep the options open by doing general theory that might come in handy.
In general this writing feels more like a literary critique than a concrete thesis. I can agree with the underlying sentiment but I don’t feel like I’m walking away with a clearer understanding of the problem after reading.
Biotech startups are an extreme example of indefinite thinking. Researchers experiment with things that just might work instead of refining definite theories about how the body’s systems operate.
The idea (AFAIK) is that both are incremental to a degree, but it’s much more incremental to try things at random than to improve your theoretical understanding, because improved theoretical understanding is relatively likely to generalize to multiple future discoveries while random experiments are more likely to be one-and-done.
I find Thiel’s writings too narrative-driven. Persuasive, but hardly succinct. Somehow, geographical discoveries, scientific progress and ideas of social justice all fit under the umbrella term “secrets” and… there is some common pattern underlying our failure in each of these aspects? Or is one the cause of the other? What am I supposed to learn from these paragraphs? Thiel himself seems very “indefinite” with his critique.
Incrementalism is bad, but biotech start-ups should nonetheless “refine definite theories” instead of random experimentation? Isn’t “refining definite theories” a prime example of incrementalism, and a strategy you would expect more out of established institutions anyway? Seems like biotech companies can only do wrong. You could also easily argue “refining definite theories” is an example of indefinite thinking because instead of focusing on developing a concrete product, you’re just trying to keep the options open by doing general theory that might come in handy.
In general this writing feels more like a literary critique than a concrete thesis. I can agree with the underlying sentiment but I don’t feel like I’m walking away with a clearer understanding of the problem after reading.
Where does this quote come from – is it in the book?
Isn’t that exactly the opposite of ‘biotech start-ups should nonetheless “refine definite theories”’?
I read it as
Biotech startups currently “experiment with things that just might work”, which is [apparently?] incremental thinking.
Instead they should refine definite theories about how the body’s systems operate [which sounds incremental to me, too].
The idea (AFAIK) is that both are incremental to a degree, but it’s much more incremental to try things at random than to improve your theoretical understanding, because improved theoretical understanding is relatively likely to generalize to multiple future discoveries while random experiments are more likely to be one-and-done.