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, substance over prestige.

And if I was giving my younger self advice on what to do or how to think about one's life, I probably would still go to Stanford, might still go to law school. But I'd ask a lot more questions why I was doing these things. I think if I was honest about it, too much of it was driven by.

By prestige.

And status and not quite enough about really the substance of trying to learn things. And, you know, I had sort of this. I sort of think of it as this sort of crazy rolling quarter life crisis and sort of culminated in this, you know, big New York law firm where from the outside, everybody wanted to get in. From the inside everybody wanted to get out.

I lasted seven.

Months and three days. And when I left, one of the people down the hall said, it's so reassuring to see you leave, Peter. I had no idea it was possible to escape from Alcatraz. And all you had to do was go through the front door. But people's identities.

Get so wrapped up.

In the things they compete for that it was inconceivable for people to actually do that. And then the question was, how had I ended up there? Why had I not.

Thought about that more?

And I think it was that I had taken too many of these shortcuts of valuing what was prestigious, what was conventional, over what I really wanted to do. So I think always.

Substance over status.