Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup - Class 8 Notes Essay
Here is an essay version of class notes from Class 8 of CS183: Startup. Errors and omissions are mine.
Bruce Gibney, partner at Founders Fund, gave the lecture these notes are based on. Credit for good stuff goes to him and Founders Fund.
Class 8 Notes Essay—The Pitch
I. Pitching Context & Goals
One of the most important things to remember when thinking about pitching is that there are huge numbers of pitches in the world. Venture capitalists hear quite a few of them. And they find the process frustrating because it is such a low yield activity (a tiny fraction of first pitches lead to subsequent diligence and even fewer of those lead to a deal). So if you want VCs to listen to you, you need to force them to listen—to break through the clutter. Doing so requires you to hack into the VC mind.
Conceptually, pitching sounds easy. You are smart. You have a great idea and you tell people with money that great idea. They’re rational; they give it to you.
But it’s not that easy. What you essentially have to do is convince a reasonably smart person to exchange his capital for your piece of paper (a stock certificate) that is really nothing more than a promise about something that may be valuable later but, on a blind statistical basis, probably won’t be. It turns out that this is difficult.
Humans are massively cognitively biased in favor of near-term thinking. VCs are no different. That’s curious, because you’d think they would have overcome it, since good long-term thinking is sort of the entire nature of venture capital. But humans are humans. VCs are just sacks of meat with the same cognitive biases as everyone else. They are rational systems infected with emotional viruses (and infused with a tinge of wealth and privilege and all that implies). You must address both sides of their brains; you have to convince VCs that your proposal is economically rational, and then you must exploit their reptilian brains by persuading their emotional selves into doing the deal and overcoming cognitive biases (like near-term focus) against the deal. You should also offer VCs entertainment. They see several pitches a day (most bad) and that gets boring. Be funny and help your cause. In the tech community, even one joke will suffice.
![changetheratio:
Trust me, I never mean to watch Tosh 2.0. Anytime I’ve accidentally caught bits of it due to DVR glitches or lazily keeping the channel at Comedy Central, I’ve sprang into action to turn it off. It’s usually infantile and more often than not, offensive. But last night, I didn’t turn it off because I was too busy staring at the screen with my jaw dropped.
This was a real segment: “Lightly Touching Women’s Stomachs While They’re Sitting Down.” As Tosh explained: “This is where you sneak up behind women who are sitting and lightly put your hand upon their stomach.” He did not clarify whether you’re supposed to know the woman in question or not, but either way, ew.
Oh look, doubling down on the “ew” with “sexist body-image fat-shaming,” like so: “Make sure she’s aware that you are in fact feeling a roll.” ARE YOU KIDDING ME. WHAT. A. DOUCHEBAG.
Then followed a brief montage of women being snuck up on and having their stomachs touched. Weirdly, none of them haul off and clock their harrasser (BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT THAT IS). The emotion displayed - presumably intentionally by Team ToshBag - is shame. ”Oh no, don’t ever touch my tummy,” begs one pitifully.
So what have we established her? 1. The touching is non-consensual. 2. It is meant to expose weakness, mock imperfect bodies, and induce shame. 3. The women, recipients of said non-consensual touch, do not like it. Pretty disgusting.
But it gets worse! ToshBag concludes his segment by addressing his audience thusly: “Okay guys, during our break I need you to film yoursleves lightly touching women’s stomachs while they’re sitting down. But be careful because they like to pretend that they don’t love it.”
HEAD. EXPLODES.
Is this for real? Comedy Central is fine to greenlight this? I know they don’t give a damn about their female viewers but it is not a stretch to say that this show is inciting men to sexually harrass women. They are pointedly telling men to non-consensually touch women - and that if they say they don’t like it, they really do. The mind positively boggles.
And oh look, they listened! Sure enough, a bunch of YouTube clips, featuring guys sneaking up behind girls who jump in surprise. (“On Tosh.0 Daniel told people to make a video of people gently touching a girls stomach so here it is.”) On the Tosh.0 community page (hosted by Comedy Central), behold a kid doing it to his TEACHER. (“My English teacher said she would have me suspended if I uploaded her reaction. So i [sic] chose my language teacher.”)
Sorry, but this is a major line-crosser. Full stop. “Oh but no one watches Tosh.0,” you say, and I thought so, too. But no! Check this out, from the season premiere in February:
“Tosh.0” drew 3.1 million total viewers to its season premiere, along with a 2.3 adult 18-49 rating, 4.1 men 18-34 rating and a 4.6 men 18-24 rating. A huge hit with young men, “Tosh.0” was the #1 series in Prime on Tuesday night across all of television with men 18-34 and men 18-24, scoring the best rating among men 18-24 for any of the series’ season premieres.
This guy’s got an audience. An obedient one. Is it unreasonable to expect Tosh.0 - and Comedy Central - to treat that power responsibly? Of course not. But if you’re confused, a thought experiment: Let’s replace “woman” with “African American.” Like so:
“Okay guys, during our break I need you to film yoursleves lightly touching African Americans’ stomachs while they’re sitting down. But be careful because they like to pretend that they don’t love it.”
Does that make you feel uncomfortable? I bet. Comedy Central should, too.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2cq6lEBcy1qcoc21o1_1280.jpg)
