If I had to sort of project in the next decade ahead, I think we have to at least be open to the possibility that the computer era is also at risk of decelerating. We have a large 'Computer Rust Belt' which nobody likes to talk about. But it is companies like Cisco, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, IBM, where I think the pattern will be to become commodities, no longer innovate. Correspondingly, cut through labor force and cut through profits in the decade ahead.
There are many companies that are on the cusp: Microsoft is probably close to the Computer Rust Belt. One that's shockingly and probably in the Computer Rust Belt is Apple Computers.
So what has actually happened since he said that?
Microsoft has the lead in A.I. technology and Apple just unveiled the best augmented reality glasses ever made. Their market caps are $2.5 trillion and $3 trillion, respectively.
In fact, every one of the "Computer Rust Belt" tech companies Thiel mentioned has seen its stocks soar over the last ten years, except IBM. If you'd bought $10,000 of stock for each of those seven companies in 2013, you'd have at least four or five times more money overall today.
At the 27:24 mark, Thiel also says that "people at Twitter have better job security than people at the New York Times," which was wrong.
I respect Thiel, but his failure to predict the future of the U.S. tech industry just ten years out, and even though he had his finger on the pulse of that industry is a useful reminder that even expert forecasts can't be 100% trusted.