The Sociopathic Boss Formula
Thiel: People always think conflicts happen when people want different things. I think conflicts normally happen when people want the same things.
If you're a sociopathic boss who wants to mistreat your employees, the formula is: tell two people to do the exact same thing. You will automatically generate a conflict out of nothing at all.
Conflicts don't happen when people want different things. They happen when they want the same things.
Differentiate the Roles
Thiel: There's always this incredible need to make sure people's roles are not redundant — that they're well differentiated. This is an extremely tricky challenge in a small company where there's a lot of fluidity. Roles tend to change a lot.
The conflicts at PayPal — or any of the other businesses I've been involved with — always centered on poorly differentiated roles where there was a lot of overlap.
PayPal's conflicts always centered on poorly differentiated roles with too much overlap.
The Product Was a Single Seamless Hole
Thiel: At PayPal, David Sacks was head of the product team. He had this line that the product was a 'single seamless hole' — which was somewhat true. But it was also a formula for never-ending conflict.
Because it meant the product team got to dictate things to everybody in the rest of the organization. Everybody else somehow touched product. So there was overlap and conflict with product almost everywhere. The product team was at war with everybody inside the company.
'The product is a single seamless hole' — somewhat true, but also a formula for never-ending conflict.