The Emperor's New Clothes. The Big Short. "Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy and Greedy When Others Are Fearful".

What do these stories have in common? The protagonists acted against the crowd but they turned out to be right. Holding the minority view while being correct is the definition of being a contrarian. It takes very strong convictions to not give up the truth, because it gets very lonely. But the road less traveled is often the only path to being truly great.

Being a contrarian can be immensely profitable both financially and politically. The most iconic contrarian of Silicon Valley is Peter Thiel. Not only did he wrote "The Diversity Myth", which addresses today's acute problem of political correctness more than 20 years ago, but he also invested in Facebook before college campus was a tech market, funded Tesla before luxury EV was a category and helped scale Lyft before Uber got into trouble. Always multiple steps ahead. No wonder some called Peter Thiel a time traveller. Most recently, he became "the only Trump supporter" in the Valley and guess what? He was right about the outcome again.

If you're practical enough, you might start asking this question: "How do I become a contrarian?" This was the question that lingered on my mind for the past year here's my framework.

1. Listen to the Contrarians. This might sound odd at first as one would assume if a contrarian has an unique idea, they would keep it a secret. In reality, they actually share quite often regarding their new theories and their processes of reaching these conclusions, because their ideas are too peculiar and most people simply ignore them. A list of contrarian investors can be found here. Follow Fred Wilson on his blog.
2. Live a lifestyle that's unlike most people. For example, when everyone around you uses an iPhone, pick up an Android. Transact with Bitcoin even though most stores won't take them yet. Either be early, or be unique.
3. Think differently and find contrarian ideas yourself. This is often the hardest part. At Founders Fund, Peter Thiel will ask interview candidates: "what is it that's true but very few people agree with you on". Even though everybody knew the interview question, not a lot had a good answer. The way I approach this question is to target the behavioral weakness of a crowd. Contrarian ideas often come from areas that's less discussed. Whenever people don't ask questions to avoid "sticking out", you should. Here are some examples: "Is democracy good", "Is higher education worthwhile" and "do we need to worry about climate change". Asking these questions in the first place could get you into a lot of trouble, but remember what Søren Kierkegaard famously wrote:

"Truth always rests with the minority."

Contrarian view points could be immensely profitable and being a contrarian is lonely but extremely rewarding sometimes (e.g. PayPal Mafia). One could argue that finding contrarian view points is simply part of the truth seeking process, but you can only benefit disproportionally by knowing a piece of information most people don't.

I'm in ecstasy every time I come across a valid contrarian view point and I nicked-name these points "gold nuggets". I collect these small gold nuggets and place them on the top of my funnel, while using a rigorous process to examine and synthesize them and eventually turn some into actionable items. To optimize top of the funnel, I've summarized where to look: gold nuggets hide in areas where people don't ask questions due to tradition, formality, legality and morality. And to clearly define the funnel, there are four levels in it:

1. View point that most people disagree with - when you talk about this point at a table, others might stand up and leave
2. View point that most people disagree with but is true
3. View point that most people disagree with, is true and could be turned into actionable items
4. View point that most people disagree with, is true, could be turned into actionable items and will generate huge impact

Here's a list of "gold nugget" ideas that I either learned from others or came up on my own and I labeled them with their levels:

===== Gold Nuggets that helped me =====

• Air pollution (smog) in China did not get worse in the past decade and doesn't impact life expectancy very much. This helped me decide to return to Beijing. - 3
• Higher education has become a bubble and the essence of attending an elite university is "getting in", which is similar to a tournament. This is why I chose not to attend Chicago Booth MBA (not a gold medal). - 4
• The core product of an internet startup (think Snapchat, Uber and Pied Piper) is not the app, not the algorithms, not the services or the brand, it's really the stock. This helps prioritize my work at Mobike. - 3
• Many "growth hacking" products in a Growth team do not bring real growth. They either borrow growth from the future or bring fake users and unsustainable user behaviors. This helps me think about our product roadmap everyday. - 3
• Most business models are not suitable for startups, an established company can tap into them easier. This made me pause working on my previous startup and will guide me in the future. - 4
• Most engineers at Google work on very easy tasks that don't require a lot of talent, certainly not an ACM gold medal. Talents in Silicon Valley in general are way over-qualified for their job. This makes me understand the job market better. - 4

===== Gold Nuggets that are interesting =====

• Many junior investment bankers work very long hours because they had to sit idle during the day and wait for their supervisors to complete their work first. - 3
• When a discipline has a "science" suffix, it's normally not a science, think Political Science, Computer Science and Environmental Science. Therefore, Climate Science can still be debated and so is climate change (/s global warming). - 1
• The house you bought and live in is a liability, not an asset, just like your car. - 3
• Diversity and multiculturalism should be about allowing more cultures and people with unique views to participate, not forbidding some discussions to be had. Students in Ivy League universities have different backgrounds and skin colors but they think alike. When Affirmative Action puts an African American student with 1800 SAT on equal footing with an Asian American with 2400 SAT, there's something wrong with today's definition of "diversity". - 2
• Democracy (i.e. one citizen one vote) might not be the best solution to a lot of today's issues and a referendum where an economist has the same amount of voting power to a high school dropout is not ideal. Democracy on the bottom, meritocracy on the top might be better. (some people stopped talking to me straight up after I brought this up) - 1
• "They fight so ferociously because the stakes are so small." - 2
• There are only two types of businesses: businesses in a very competitive environment, and businesses with monopolies. Always aim for monopolies. Competition is for losers (Peter Thiel) - 3

===== Gold Nuggets that contain Fortune Cookie wisdom =====

• Lots of very expensive foods taste terrible. The same wine tastes better when you pay a higher price for it. - 3
• The diamond market is rigged by De Beers. - 3
• Almost all professional athletes and Olympic athletes are on some type of performance enhancing drug - 1
• Tipping in America is really messed up - 1
• GMO's are not inherently bad for human health. - 3

==========

Sharing these contrarian view points might get me into a lot of trouble or spark up some fierce debate, but I'm open to it, because at the end of the day, this is part of the truth-seeking process. The road to becoming a contrarian will be scary and lonely, but it will never be dark, as I'm guided with the motto of my Alma Mater:

Lux et Veritas / Light and Truth