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Science is totally worthless without implementation. Who cares about whether we understand the world in and of itself, what matters is real capabilities. If prayer were more useful than maths in making things happen, we would be praying rather than calculating. Thiel implements, he uses science to make things happen. Making things happen is what we care about, that's why they get the big bucks.
Not all rich people are smart but rich people who start highly successful science-based companies are reasonable sources on discussing the transformative effects of science. They've been there, they've tried transforming science into outcomes and succeeded (which is more than many scientists can say). Maybe Thiel doesn't know so much about quantum chronodynamics, though I expect he's smart enough to learn. But what he does know is what he's talking about. He's not saying 'X-rays scatter according to Thetaman's law', he's not making a technical claim but an implementation claim about cultures of organizations, human resource management, academia, innovation as a broad process.
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