emily: he has been called king of tech copia, peter thiel is one of silicon valleys most audacious and contrarian investors. he may his name funding paypal. he is back and rocket ships. dna manipulation, meat grown in labs. he paid kids to skip college and start companies instead. in hopes of reaching a better future, faster, and building flying cars along the way. joining me on "studio 1.0,"

021,"uthor of a new book, " peter thiel. what does that mean, zero to one? peter: it means going to the first typewriter, the first word processor, the first airplane. -- first car, first airplane. doing something that has never been done before. if we are taking our civilization to the next level it will require us to do more things and invent new things. emily: what companies have taken us from zero to one? argue that for the last few decades we have been in a tech slowdown for facebook, apple and google, having not been active enough? peter: i would argue we have not done as much as we could have. we have less innovation in areas like biotechnology. not as much as one might like. transportation, we are not moving any faster. emily: one thing you tell aspiring entrepreneurs is do not

copy mark zuckerberg, do not copy steve jobs, why not russian mark -- why not? peter: in some sense you cannot copy them. because they did not copy somebody else. mi: you suggested they come up with one very important troop. -- important truth. emily: you also suggest to come up with one important truth. something that no one agrees with you on, the best way to get -- everyone to believe in you? peter: i think there is a sense of if we were not doing this, no one else would be doing this, and if we created a monopoly in the good sense of an investor. that is the best kind of business to have. emily: you say that google is a monopoly. peter: it obviously is. they tend to focus on all these other areas.

ebay has an monopoly in the auction space. emily: is facebook a monopoly? peter: i would argue there are still emerging competitors in the social networking space that come up, twitter, snapchat, all of the companies come up on a daily basis. emily: do you have any concern that companies could ever become too powerful, that they stifle innovation? peter: i tend to think this is not happening a lot any technology area, because there has always been enough innovation to keep things flowing. emily: does that mean that someday you think google, facebook, amazon, will not be as prominent -- dominant as they are? peter: they will be dominant for a while. they are all great businesses but i do not think they will be dominant forever. emily: do you see one or another becoming more dominant than the rest?

peter: it is always difficult to judge, but if i had to pick one, i tend to think google has an incredible arc at this point. emily: how? peter the core search monopoly : is a powerful and they are trying to extend it into these other areas. emily: they are exploring so many different things, robotics, google glass, self driving cars. peter: they are all -- absolutely. these are attempts to extend the search monopoly. emily: which of the project are you the most excited about? peter: the self driving cars would change transportation may be as much as the development of the car it self. startups toompare ts.ts -- cul not in the sense -- there is an intense understanding of something that is true that very few people do. my paypal friend elon musk's

spacex company is motivated by the idea that they will get human beings tomorrow's in the next 15 years or so. believe, it isng unusual, this unique set of ideas that motivate the people and distinguish them from the rest of the world. emily: something else that you say is that a messed up startup cannot be fixed, why not? peter: if you get some of the first things wrong, it is extreme hard to recover. emily: i am guessing you think messed up tech companies can be fixed? hp andi would argue that yahoo! are not technology companies at all. they were in the 1970's and 1980's with hp, and even in the 90's with yahoo! -- today they

are fundamentally against technology and innovation. emily: even though they are not technology companies can yahoo! and hp be fixed? peter: it is probably a mistake for them to radically reinvent themselves and become technology companies once again. emily: you mentioned marissa mayer's, what do you think her chances are for turning things around? peter: she is by far the best ceo yahoo! has had in at least a decade. she should not be evaluated on whether she comes and invents something new. that is setting her up for failure. the existing businesses are big and if you can improve that i , make those work, that is fantastic. emily: other than what you have written in this book, what are some things that you believe that very few people agree with you on? peter: i have been outspoken about this idea that college education has become something of a bubble. a trillion dollars in student

debt, we are not getting what we are paying for, and it needs to be rethought in a fundamental way. emily: if you could start education over again, what would you do? peter: get rid of the word education to start with. emily: would there still be school? peter i think you would still : have schools but they were the very different. they are stuck in the 19th century. you try to figure out ways to make them more individuated where different students learn at their own pace. emily: you do have the thiel fellowship. you give aspiring entrepreneurs to not go to school, but instead to start companies. some have gone back to school. why do you think that is? peter: most of them have not, it was a designed as a two-year program in which people could take a break from college. i think across the board they have found it to be an incredibly valuable learning experience. i went to stanford to my went to law school. i might do that again. if i did it again i would ask a

lot more tough questions while i was doing it. emily: would you be where you are if you did not go to law school? peter: we have never run experiments twice, having gone to stanford was quite valuable. i would worry that i have gone to a number of other universities, that might have discouraged me from going into tech. tech: if you are not into what is something else you might , want to do? peter: i would attempt to be a teacher. it is not against learning. i'm against education. emily: of the six people who built paypal, four of them build -- had built bombs in high school. peter: i was not one of them. [laughter] ♪

emily: something that you talk about is the danger of founders becoming captive to their own myth. what is the myth of peter thiel and what is the reality? , peter: the myth is that they

singulart is somehow and they are somehow divine, omnipotent beings. these things that i am doing are not solo efforts. i have friends that i talked to a lot and people that work with me closely. emily: i am curious about your background, and what should you along the way. -- what has shaped you along the way. i know that you were born in germany and moved around a lot, you went to south africa and namibia. tell me about your upbringing. peter: i went to seven different elementary schools as a kid, and so i felt a little bit like an outsider, and a little bit of an insider. it is a combination of insider, outsider perspective that shakes things a lot. emily: what were your parents like? peter: my dad was an engineer. my mom was a homemaker. they were focused on education. emily: you were also raised an evangelical christian, and you question things like evolution. peter: i still consider myself a

think it isnd i valuable to have a very different perspective on things. it pushes you to either defend your ideas very well, or have a much deeper understanding of why they are wrong. emily: on paper you worked in a new york law firm and you worked on wall street. it sounds pretty standard. where was the contrary and in you? contrary and in you? peter: there was a sense that i could not see myself as being happy doing this. was there any event in life that triggered you to start down a different path? peter: it was a bit of an evolution. i can certainly point to late nights at the law firm where i asked myself, what am i doing -- here?ly: emily emily: who do you call for : what? peter: there is something about a set of my friends from paypal, there is an intense experience and i think those bonds will never quite be matched in their intensity.

emily: the first line of chapter 14 is, "of the six people who founded paypal, four of them built bombs in high school." peter: i was not one of those four. [laughter] i think there is something that is always quite extreme about the personalities of those going into a startup company. emily: building a bomb is a good thing. peter: having extreme personalities is a somewhat good thing. emily: who built the bombs? it wasn't you? peter: i can't say. emily: as successful as so many -- as successful as pay how was, as successful as only members of the paypal mafia has been, you have also had failure. said thate also paypal was a failure, why? peter: it was a failure and that we did not achieve our original vision of a completely new currency system. emily: what about bitcoin, does that get closer to what you imagine? peter: i am psychologically biased against it. if we could not succeeded paypal

i would be tempted to come up , with reasons why nobody would succeed at it. emily: chances of it succeeding are unlikely? peter: i think it is slightly too cumbersome to work as a new -- to work at the end of the day as a new payment system. emily: you were the first outside investor in facebook. did you convince mark or did he convince you? peter: some combination of both. at the time it felt like a no-brainer, become but he was growing very fast. they needed more money for computers. i would be ahem relatively hands-off investor. emily: do you worry facebook could get this off track or distracted? peter: it is always a challenge. you have to do some new things because you are not in a static , world, and you don't want to do too many. you want to do just the right number of new things. palantir, customers include the cia and the air force, yet there is so much mystery around it. as i understand, palantir is using data on a massive scale to

solve major problems from disease, to terrorism. peter: it is always an interactive problem. part of the data can be processed by computers. parts of that data can be analyzed by humans. one person that looked into it had determined the software had been involved with the bin laden raid. emily: do you think you could stop the next 9/11, or has it already? peter: something like palantir is the key, i don't think we are going to do it by projecting military force throughout the world, i think we will do it by sort of very cleverly uncovering these conspiracies before they come together. emily: some have expressed concern that your client could actually use palantir to do evil , do you worry about that? always a twois

d part to these technologies. technologies are never in transit with a good, there is always a question of how they can be used or abused. i think there are a lot of checks in place. emily: someone described it as plugging into the matrix. peter: one government agency that gave us a bunch of data, we uncovered a terrorist plot they had not suspected. this led them to conclude they had to reclassify data as classified. emily: would you say it has helped thwart multiple terrorist plots? peter: i suspect that is true. emily: founders fund for example, what is the craziest sector that you might enter that we would not expect? peter one that we started to : look at the margins that is wildly out of fashion is the nuclear power industry. is it possible to build safer, cheaper, better reactors with all of these new technologies? and when you look at the technologies, it looks like the answer is definitely yes. i am very worried about the regulatory issues with it. but i think it is worth tackling that some more. emily: i want to talk more about

your vision of the future and man versus machine. you are not so worried that computers are going to take our jobs? peter: not anytime soon. i think technology has freed -- has generally free people of to do other things in -- things. emily: at some point though, you said in the 22nd century, computers could be smarter than us. peter: there is always an interesting sort of debate -- what will happen -- will artificial intelligence actually get murdered in humans, and how will that change things you -- things? i don't think that will happen for a long time, but i think our political and cultural problems, i think it is like having extraterrestrial landing on the planet. if we had aliens landing on this planet, we would not ask the first question, what does this mean for my job. we would ask, are they friendly or not friendly. italy: -- emily: what is the most pondered --ea he

idea you pondered about how humans could potentially survive in the future? peter: we should give nuclear power very serious consideration, it does not create greenhouse gases. emily: is it about other -- other solar systems? is mars going to be first? peter: there are a lot of things that make mars natural, yes. emily: you ponder several futures, including human action area -- human extinction. what are the possibilities about that? peter: what are the technologies we need to develop? we need to stay focused on that and i think our prospects are very good. emily: you have a startup island off the coast. what is your vision there? peter: this is sort of a side , the question is is it possible to create a new community that we could start a new society that would have very different rules and be able to govern itself? this is still far in the future, but it has a lot of people interested.

emily: so you imagine this as being another country? peter: it would be another country, and it would cost tens of billions to build, more capital than i have. but there is nothing that makes it impossible. emily: you think that you may live to be 120. peter: i certainly hope to, yes. ♪

emily: you have been portrayed on the hbo show "silicon valley" and the island has been portrayed on the show. have you watched it? peter: i have seen a few of the episodes ran -- episodes. they would dispute they were portraying me. they would dispute -- emily: he invested in an island. peter: i think the character gives a compelling portrayal of

someone who is passionate about the future, determined to make things happen. people are driven, slightly crazy. i think it is a positive show. emily: can you really grow meat and leather and labs? peter: yes, i think the problem is if somebody will actually eat it. emily: what you think about what do you think about failure? peter: this idea that failure is ok is a destructive means. i think that failure is always a problem. when a company fails it is a tragedy. it is often damaging for the people who go through it. emily: what is your biggest failure? peter: there are definitely some things that worked better than others, investment sales, -- investments that failed, but, on the whole, i have always been resilient. emily: i know you have thought a lot about the extension of human life. you think that you may live until 120. peter: i certainly hope to, yes.

emily: what are you doing differently? are you taking immortality pills, exercise -- peter: i think on the nutrition side, there are some very basic things that can be done. you should not eat sugar. that is probably one of the nutritional rule. emily: do you still eat sugar? peter: i still do, but not so much. emily: what do you need more of? peter: i do the paleo diet. only paleo gets you two 120 -- to 120. you need new technology and innovation for us to have a longer and healthier lives. emily: like what? peter: cures for cancer, alzheimer's, find ways to restore organs when they are falling apart. you can go through all of the different ways people's bodies breakdown. the main, drastic thing i am doing, is i am on hgh, human growth hormone, on a daily basis.

emily: what is the benefit of that? peter: it helps maintain muscle mass, so you are much less likely to get bone injuries, arthritis, stuff like that. there is the worry that will increase your cancer risk. i am hopeful that we will get cancer cured in the next decade. thatther nutritional thing is happening is all of the stuff on the fire level, where you basically have -- you have about as many bacteria inside of you as in a star. one of the things that will happen in the next few years, people will to gear out a way to reset your bacterial ecosystem. you can look at people who are super healthy, you can figure out what ecosystem they have an replace yours with theirs. emily: peter thiel, thank you so much for joining us today on "studio 1.0," it was great to have you. ♪

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emily: he has been called tech's boy genius, a nonconformist, perhaps the only ceo who has refused to keep a schedule. david karp started tumblr before he was 20. he sold it to to yahoo! for about $1 billion before he was 30. it is now one of the most creative and social blogging platforms, all from a guy who dropped out of high school, lives in a loft, and drives a vespa. joining me today on "studio 1.0," tumblr founder and ceo david karp. , thank you for joining us. thank you for having this on the schedule. david: i do have a schedule now.