Peter Thiel believes every entrepreneur’s goal should be to build a monopoly, ‘one-of-a-kind company’ has no competition
Billionaire investor Peter Thiel believes that every entrepreneur’s goal should be to build a monopolistic company. I would add that founders who do something different, who build a ‘one of a kind’ company, can ensure success.
in that 2014-2015 Authors@Wharton Speaker Series On October 1, 2014, Peter Thiel spoke to students and staff of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and discussed his book ‘From Zero to One: Starts Ups, or Notes on How to Build the Future’.
According to the venture capitalist, competition and capitalism are opposites, and to be successful, a business must fulfill its monopoly role in its industry.
Peter Thiel: ‘A bad kind of business is super competitive’
The billionaire began by saying that the “most important distinction” in the business world that people don’t talk about enough is that there are two types of companies in this world. “These are competitive companies, and there are companies that have monopolies. If you’re a unique company, you’re a happy company doing things differently. You’re a monopoly. Trying to build a monopolistic business should be the goal of every founder and entrepreneur,” he said.
Giving an example of a bad business to invest in, Thiel said that no one can make money with a super-competitive venture like opening a restaurant, but Silicon Valley technology companies are at the other end of the spectrum. He explained: “The example of a great monopoly business that I gave is Google, which has had no competition in the search space since 2002, when it definitively moved away from Microsoft and Yahoo. And it has been making enormous profits for about twelve years since then.”
Peter Thiel believes capitalism and competition are antonyms
The Paypal and Palantir co-founder also said that while most people believe capitalism and competition are synonymous, he thinks they are antonyms.
“I believe that a capitalist is in the business of accumulating capital. (But) a world of perfect competition is a world where all profits are contested… And so you want to be in monopoly. You don’t want to be in a world of competition.”
Peter Thiel thinks Nvidia is ‘disturbingly close’ to dotcom bubble status
Speaking at the All-In Summit in September 2024, Peter Thiel warned investors that Nvidia shares may no longer be a good bargain despite its blockbuster performance on Wall Street. “Maybe a year or two ago Nvidia would have been a good buy. Now everyone knows they make a lot of money and everyone is trying to copy them,” he said.
Thiel compared the rise of Jensen Huang’s company to the “dotcom” bubble, adding that the current environment is “uncomfortably close to 1999.”
Last year, United States Securities and Exchange Commission (US SEC) filings showed that as of the end of September 2025, Peter Thiel’s hedge fund Thiel Macro had sold its entire stake worth $100 million in the artificial intelligence chip maker, according to a Reuters report. The move has increased concern about the AI bubble bursting.
The application also stated that the fund’s important assets include iPhone manufacturer Apple, software leader Microsoft and Tesla led by Elon Musk.
