PayPal founder Peter Hill: seeking creative monopolies

When Peter was a young man, he entered Stanford through competition. Then he entered Stanford Law school through competition. Then he became a member of a federal judge by competition. Hill is the winner of all this competition. But then, when he competed and wanted to be a member of the Supreme Court, Hill did not win the race. Do you think Hill really lost? He didn't become a court clerk, but he created PayPal. He then became an early investor in Facebook and invested in many other well-known technology companies. A long time later, someone asked him: "Are you glad you didn't become a Supreme Court clerk?" "The problem is that Hill is thinking. Now he is incorporating these thoughts into a course he teaches at Stanford Computer department. One of his core arguments is that people should not aspire to be the best competitor, but rather to be the best monopolist. In his view, rather than being a little better than others in a crowded and existing field, it would be better to create a new market and dominate the market entirely. In this way, the profits will be more generous, and the contribution to society is usually greater. The "monopoly" that Hill refers to is not the monopoly of "destroying all enemies by illegal means". He refers to doing something so innovative that you build a completely different market, identity and status. You build a creative monopoly, and they have to come to you as long as people want it. He points to an inspiring possibility: The competitive spirit that capitalism creates threatens to stifle even the ideas that capitalism needs. Think about the qualities that creative people have: they don't drift, they often drift away, they forget the tradition, and then bring back the idea of social marginalization to the mainstream. They do not run as fast as they know, but are free to move in a barren land that no one knows. So how did the spirit of innovation get hurt? First of all, the students must complete the increasingly difficult and previously designed academic tasks. They are rewarded because they become professional students and have achieved good results in all subjects, regardless of their intrinsic interest. They then enter the ranking system, scrambling to get to the best universities and getting the best jobs. Whether or not the best universities, banks and companies are right for them, these opportunities always mean higher social status. Then they enter the job, the biggest task is competition, this task overwhelmed all other goals. Competition no longer creates value. In many cases, competition hurts innovation. Competition and war are all competitions. But business, politics, ideas and many other areas are not. If someone wins your three innings, you can choose to pick up your gear and invent a completely different game. You don't need to compete, you can invent. The culture we live in fosters our competitive power: discipline, rigor and reliability, and they are essential. But perhaps we should add to the capacity of creative monopolies: vigilance, independence, andAbility to reconstruct forgotten traditions.