Did you actually read the article you linked? The article and the fund are quite consistent.
Thiel argues that the economic growth and tech breakthroughs of the past few decades are being taken for granted, that not enough people are taking on the ambitious projects needed to realize a future that we all assume is coming.
This initiative is him putting money behind his words.
It depends on your view of what makes the world a better place.
For tech startups, the distribution of world-changing impact probably closely follows the distribution of investment returns. If it's extremely bimodal, then it makes sense to concentrate on generating big wins.
Dropbox was not the first mover [1]. In fact, their entrance into the market for cloud storage/sync is in a way analogous to Google's entrance into search.
You're second point sounds right. But to me, Dropbox has always been about the UX and convenience rather than the cost / space.
I think it will be interesting to see what Google launches.
OK, then what about The Blair Witch Project? One of the most polarizing movies on the graph, but not exactly what you'd call "safely" manufactured for an existing fanbase.
> not exactly what you'd call "safely" manufactured for an existing fanbase.
I'd say a film having a budget of $22k[1] is pretty safe, as far as the rest of the films on that list are concerned. While not a non-trivial amount of debt for a handful of people to take on, it's roughly in the same price range as a new car, which most people are capable of taking on.
You'll have to forgive slightly imprecise language. This post was in response to the noise around the blogosphere that Hollywood has become too conservative, and is targeting reliable niches (as you point out).
We think one interesting way to observe the above is via polarization.
