Most people, these days, they don’t even believe in reincarnation. They’d say, you only go around once.
Originally asked
Peter Thiel, to job candidates, Zero to One, chapter 1, 2014
Peter Thiel, Zero to One, chapter 1, where it is introduced as his job-interview question. Thiel supplies his own standard: a good answer takes the form "most people believe x, but the truth is the opposite of x."
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Interview, Rorschach Test, Interview Magazine, 2 January 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 41 →They always say, “Don’t take your job home.” When you go home, don’t take it. I don’t agree with that.
I'd argue that while no doubt mistakes have been made, including by us and KKR, many have misunderstood (or greatly simplified) the model. They have overlooked how value is created -- and for whom.
That everyone understood and respected the food pyramid, the way it all works. Good food doesn’t come cheap. You know, there’s a lot of heart and soul and care that goes in producing as well as cooking. So I’d give a little bit more love to farmers.
More from Alan Cumming
View profile →The power of positive thinking.
No, I would never say that. I would never say that I do something just in order to put a fresh spin on it or do something different with it. I am drawn to certain plays because I think there’s something about them in the story that I want to tell, or that I think is relevant—something that strikes me. With Macbeth, I’m not doing this because I want to do a crazy interpretation or production.
I think acting your age is allowing other people to make decisions for you about how you should behave and what is age-appropriate. I encourage people to live and not be tied down with other people's expectations of what you should be doing. If you want to do something, go and do it. We overly worship the altar of youth. It's not good for our mental health. As a culture, we need to get better at seeing the beauty in aging and the beauty in things that are not young.
It’s a gut thing. There’s no rhyme or reason to it.
I realized, I’m not doing it for the audience; I’m doing it for me. I like it. I want to be able to see if I can still do it. I want to see if I can challenge myself. I want to have a good time. With ‘Macbeth,’ I wasn’t finished with it. It wasn’t out of my system.
I think the notion of a bucket list is kind of wrong, actually. If you want to do something, go and do it. Don't put it on a list and think, I want to do this before I die. What if you die tomorrow? Just go and do the things. Seize the day. A couple of years ago, I decided I'd like to do a dance piece, and I ended up doing this one-man dance-theater piece about (Scottish poet) Robert Burns. I just wanted to use my body in a different way.
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