"What Do You Know Is True that Others Don't Agree with?": The Importance of Contrarian and Original Thinking

Bachelor Thesis, Master Thesis or Project Study

📌 Key facts

• Mission: Find out how you can think against the mainstream, who knows best how to do it, and how successful it really is. • When: Start anytime. Applications are open! • How to apply: Send us an e-mail (at the end of this page) with your CV and a grade report and a tentative research idea (research question, data and methods, possible outcomes with a tentative outline all in word as *.docx)

Contents

• 💡 Background
• 🦾Who We Are
• 🎯 Goals
• 🎓 Profile
• 📚 Further Reading
• 📄 Requirements to any Work
• 📬 How to Apply

💡 Background

Contrarian thinking (= going against the mainstream opinion or assessment) is the opposite of conformity. Daring to think and be different can lead to great success or failure. Peter Thiel is famous for asking „What is it you know to be true that no one else agree with” because that is the birthing bed of any unique discovery, startup, endeavour. We want you to find out who thinks contrarian. How do they do it? Are there theories supporting the success of this strategy?

🦾Who We Are

The Chair for Strategy and Organization is focused on doing research with impact. This means we do not want to repeat old ideas and base our research solely on the research people did 10 years ago. Instead, we currently research topics that will shape the future. Topics such as Agile Organizations and Digital Disruption, Blockchain Technology, Creativity and Innovation, Digital Transformation and Business Model Innovation, Diversity, Education: Education Technology and Performance Management, HRTech, Leadership and Teams. We are always early in noticing trends, technologies, strategies and organizations that shape the future, which has its ups and downs.

🎯 Goals

• Identify and collect theories of contrarian thinking
• Identify proponents that advocate for contrarian thinking, e.g., Peter Thiel
• Identify historic and current examples of contrarian thinkers and actors and how going against mainstream knowledge and opinion, e.g., Ignaz Semmelweiss, Dan Shechtman

🎓 Profile

• Reliable and self-driven
• Enthusiasm for psychology / network dynamics / investing / entrepreneurship
• Ability to do sophisticated internet, desk research, and connect with practitioners
• Passion to learn more about the future and do research with impact

📚 Further Reading

Thiel, P. & Masters, B. (2014). Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future. Currency.

Contrarian Thinking for Startups: Lessons from Peter Thiel - AlleyWatch

I recently finished reading Peter Thiel's book, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future, and it's a must-read for anyone working on a startup or any product in general. Peter Thiel was the founder of PayPal, co-founder of Palantir, an early investor in Facebook, and runs Founders Fund, an early-stage ...

www.alleywatch.com

Unconventional wisdom leads to a $310m exit for contrarian founder Auren Hoffman

Auren Hoffman is a founder of Safegraph and previously LiveRamp which was acquired by Axiom for $310m in 2014. Auren shares his views on why smart people make wrong decisions and how to create focus for your company. Auren has found success based on his unconventional thinking doing these 3 things - Taking away optionality ie.

startupsventurecapital.com

It's never been a better time to be a contrarian.

QE has created too much money chasing too few good investment ideas, which quickly becomes a crowded trade, and therefore dangerous, and subject to a violent reversal. With the demise of traditional media and the rise of fake news, it is harder than before to measure extremes in media sentiment.

latest.13d.com

Contrarian Thinking: Developing the Elite Man's Mindset

"We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful." - Warren Buffett They were all contrarian thinkers. Plato, Napoleon, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, countless others...all contrarians. Even though these people are famous for their outlier ways, contrarian thinking is accessible to everyone.

www.unstoppablerise.com

📄 Requirements to any Work

We do not want your research to gather dust in some corner of a bookshelf but make it accessible to the world. Thus, we warmly encourage you to create some or all of the following:

• Infograph - visually represent some of your work (find examples here)
• Slide Deck - summarize your research and possibly present it
• Extract most important sequences from podcasts, videos, and other media
• 3-4 Tweets about the most important findings and summarizing the topic
• optional: Medium Article - let people outside university know about your research and start your personal brand

📬 How to Apply

If you are interested, please contact Prof. Dr. Isabell Welpe (e-mail below) by submitting your CV and grade report. Please also briefly outline your tentative research idea (research question, data and methods, possible outcomes with a tentative outline all in word as *.docx)

We're greatly looking forward to hearing more about you!

👉 welpe@tum.de