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Peter Thiel was not arguing that evil is morally good. In an interview with Mathias Döpfner, he separated moral judgment from functional competence: someone can be “evil” in the ethical sense yet effective at getting things done. He later made his preference explicit: “I think it’s better to be good than evil.”
What did Peter Thiel mean by “evil” and “bad”?
Thiel made the remarks while Döpfner was asking whether technologies such as artificial intelligence should be judged as inherently positive or negative, or by how people use them. Thiel responded that people “moralize way too much” and distinguished two meanings that are often conflated:
- Moral judgment: good versus evil asks whether conduct is ethically right or wrong.
- Functional judgment: competent or effective versus bad asks whether something works or achieves its purpose.
He illustrated the difference with cars: a Ferrari could be “evil” in the functional sense of poor fuel economy, while a Trabant could be “bad” because it functions poorly. He then applied the analogy to people: an evil person might still be competent and “at least getting something done.”
The analogy is deliberately provocative, and it is not a claim that effectiveness makes wrongdoing ethical. It is Thiel’s way of shifting the question from a person’s moral character to whether that person is capable of achieving an aim.
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Did Thiel say evil people are actually good?
Only in a qualified, functional sense. The interview transcript has him say an evil person may be “maybe” and “kind of good” because they are getting something done. Those hedges matter: he is not reclassifying evil as moral goodness. He is using “good” to mean capable or productive, rather than ethically virtuous.
Thiel then removed any ambiguity about his moral preference: “I think it’s better to be good than evil. I want to be very clear.” The headline’s “actually quite good” is therefore shorthand for his distinction, not a fair summary if read as saying he endorses evil.
Why did he call incompetence the bigger problem?
Thiel’s broader point was that public discussion tends to sort people and technologies into moral categories of good and evil, while many failures are neither: they are simply ineffective. He said, “Most of the time those things are not even evil, they’re not even good, they’re just merely bad.” In this part of his argument, “bad” means incompetent or unsuccessful, not wicked.
He also claimed that “99%” of businesses, companies, people, political leaders, and business leaders are “totally incompetent.” That is Thiel’s estimate in the interview, not an established statistic: the transcript gives no method or supporting evidence for the number.
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What was the Faust reference?
In the same exchange, Thiel brought up Marlowe’s and Goethe’s Faust while discussing good, evil, and the consequences of ambition. The references locate his remarks in a longer conversation about morality and technology; they do not change the central distinction between ethical character and functional competence. The transcript names the works but does not identify particular editions.
What else did the interview say about democracy?
Later, Döpfner asked Thiel about his much-discussed 2009 statement that freedom and democracy are incompatible. Thiel said he issued a correction two weeks after the original essay and that he did not mean votes would be taken away or democracy would disappear. He described his point as favoring the depoliticization, or de-intensification, of politics. That is Thiel’s retrospective account of his earlier writing, not an independent resolution of what the essay meant.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Source and context
The relevant exchange appears in a third-party transcript of Thiel’s interview with Mathias Döpfner. It is useful for the interview’s context and wording, but it is not an official transcript; minor punctuation or transcription differences may occur. Read the interview transcript.
A secondary report published under the same headline also summarizes the remarks, but its descriptions should not be mistaken for Thiel’s exact words. Read the report.
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