Being someone who has a lot of technical skills, and not a lot of networking skills, I like what this guy is saying. Unfortunately, the reality is if you have lots of technical skills, but you don't know anyone, you get nowhere. If you have no technical skills but have lots of connections, you will still have a successful life in this industry. I can't tell you how many people I've worked with over the years who completely had no idea how to build stuff, despite their 15+ year career in the Enterprise.
Personally, if I could trade in all of my technical skills for "hustling" skills, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
It sort of flies in the face of all of common wisdom. The fact that this person advertises as a Thiel Fellow makes the argument a little more hilarious to me.
Why is that the common wisdom is to be in the Bay Area for startups? Is it because paying obscene taxes, obscene living expenses, etc, etc is actually beneficial to your business? No, so what is it then .... Oh. Exactly.
Personally, if I could trade in all of my technical skills for "hustling" skills, I'd do it in a heartbeat.