Philosophical Entrepreneurship: Peter Thiel and Carly Fiona
Introduction
Philosophy refers to a study focused on the fundamental and general questions that relate to understanding a person’s knowledge on truths about themselves, their surroundings and the connection shared between people and the world they live in. Additionally, it is viewed as a theoretical approach or attitudes that act as a moralistic compass guiding a person’s behaviour and principles. Therefore, values and ideas that relate to this context are essential across different fields of operation, involving humanity. John Stuart Mill once said, “It is what men think, that determines how they act.” (Mill, 1861). As such, entrepreneurs have widely incorporated philosophical ideologies in propelling their enterprises into success. Among these are Peter Thiel and Carly Fiorina who attribute their success to philosophical knowledge.
Peter Thiel is a renown German American Silicon Valley entrepreneur, attributed to the founding of PayPal and its management and Palantir Technologies, e-commerce and software companies, respectively (Subedi, 2014). Subsequently, the personality is associated with several investments and the founding of high-tech ventures such as Facebook, SpaceX, LinkedIn and also Airbnb among others. On the other hand, Carly Fiorina is a business executive, attributed to heading Hewlett Packard Company from 1999 to 2015, making her the first woman to head a company associated with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (Dobrzynski, 2008). Apart from being female, Fiorina was also the first outsider to lead a computer company that was established on traditional principles (Norander, 2008). Currently, Fiorina is not only a business executive but also a politician and author. In her book, Find Your Way: Unleash Your Power and Highest Potential, she states that everyone can incorporate various simple steps in their lives in their pursuit of success and happiness (Sheinelle, & Craig, 2019).
While pursuing his undergraduate degree at Stanford in the 80s, Thiel studied under Rene Girand, a historian and literary critic from France. Rene’s Mimetic Theory became a stepping stone towards Thiel’s perception of the world. Mimetic Theory is founded on the assumption that all cultural behaviours, starting with the development of language, are acquired through imitation (Wharff, 2007). Rene perceives the world as an environment surrounded by envy, in which, similar to mimes, people imitate each other’s desires. Additionally, Rene indicates that mimetic conflicts result from desires for a similar limited resource (Wharff, 2007). From these ideologies constructed by Rene’s theory on mimes, Thiel’s philosophical position is built. According to Thiel, the approach represents a portal into a past coupled with the origin of humanity and their history. Also, it is a representation of the present, with regards to various psychological, interpersonal dynamics (Thiel, 2014). By internalizing the ideologies shared by Girand, Thiel was influenced into focusing on a business-oriented career, while he had studied to become a lawyer. According to Thiel, as a lawyer, he observed that lawyers were competitively engaged in acquiring similar shared goals (Thiel, 2015). Subsequently, he states that people can leave enterprises that are cutthroat competitive and focus on other endeavours, by just walking out the door and never coming back. Nevertheless, even this was possible, psychologically people are incapable of such a decision, since they created an identity based on competition among themselves and as such, find it difficult to leave such environments (Thiel, 2015). Therefore, through the Mimetic theory, he established his philosophical notion that competition is for losers (Thiel, 2015)
Carly Fiorina became successful in the business world through her resilience and hard work. She fits in her own class of leaders both in the business and political fields. She worked through her struggles from a secretary at a real estate business to becoming one of the major female leaders to run a Fortune 500 company (Elliot, 2015). Fiorina’s philosophical position is founded on leaders and, particularly on women leadership. Ethics are her major factor in describing leadership. During her lecture in ethics at the Peter S. Hagerman inaugural, she said that everyone is capable of achieving success, and hold a lot of potentials than they realize, and what is needed the provision of opportunity through chances (Sheinelle, & Craig, 2019). According to Fiorina, leaders are obligated to use their positions in working towards a greater good and not only to improve their performance and profits (Nohria & Fiorina, 2011). Hewlett-Packard declared Carly Fiorina the first woman Chief executive of a Fortune 500 company, with a commitment to change things. HP was not ready to receive only that. Fortune Magazine labelled her as among the most influential women in Industry’ in 2003 and claimed that Carly showed that she was a world-class risk-taker. In 2002, Carly guided HP to a partnership with Compaq Computers and was recognized as among the major high-tech alliances in the industry’s history. And Carly’s risk-taking efforts set out a revolutionary strategy towards helping clients and consumers flourish in the cyber age (Norander, 2008).
Through her globalization efforts in the business industry constructed in her leadership style philosophically mounted on ethical approaches, she received several awards. After her top managers informed her that it might require a year to carry out her strategy on reorganizing the company, Fiorina ordered for a three-month achievement of the plan, which was completed. Staff members stated that it was challenging in attempting to keep up with her; many went for days without sleep as they strive to achieve the directive she had instigated. Several HP leaders termed the strategy the Fiorina Shakeup” phenomenon. Evidently, wherever she failed, she practised a truly authority-compliant leadership style that sparked quite a lot of staff turnover (Norander, 2008). While Fiorina was effective in transforming HP during the six-year tenure, she failed to meet staff needs.
Conclusion
These two business icons share various philosophical notions that they credit to having influenced their success in the business world. Both attended law schools, however, ended up following a vocation on entrepreneurship, a field that they thrived significantly. Their roles in the business industry transformed both leadership concepts and ideologies of choosing a career.
References
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Nohria, N & Fiorina, C 2011, ‘The Big Question’, Bloomberg Businessweek, no. 4254, p. 68, http://search.ebscohost.com.dist.lib.usu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mat&AN=67268253&site=ehost-live
Sheinelle J,& Craig M (2019). Former CEO Carly Fiorina talks power, leadership and her thoughts on the 2020 race. Today Show (NBC). http://search.ebscohost.com.dist.lib.usu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=n5h&AN=32U1803299861TOS&site=ehost-live. Accessed May 14, 2020.
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