The analogy I like best is "Work to increase your surface area for luck." When dissolving a substance, if you pulverize it, you increase the surface area, which allows for greater interaction with the surrounding water molecules, and thus enables a faster dissolving rate.
In the same way, the more interactions one has, the more opportunities for fortune to strike. The result may look like "luck" from the outside, but in reality it was a confluence of both stochastic elements and fortuitous prior decision making.
Isn't that an example of a "diversification" strategy, similar to the "join many clubs/activities in high school" approach? The fact that it's a strategy (and therefore involves prior decision making - specifically the decision to follow the strategy) doesn't make it a "determinate" strategy.
I believe the lecturer (Thiel) is advocating for determinate strategies - which, practically speaking, reduce the surface area for luck since time is a finite resource. My interpretation is that he is advocating for "moon shot" approaches (examples given: Tesla, Space-X, AirBNB) where the plan/vision is laid out from the beginning.
This contrasts with the iterative "lean startup" approach whereby an initial product is launched followed by an iterative customer feedback loop. The evokes raises an interesting question: is the "lean startup" methodology an artifact of "Indeterminate Optimism"?
In the same way, the more interactions one has, the more opportunities for fortune to strike. The result may look like "luck" from the outside, but in reality it was a confluence of both stochastic elements and fortuitous prior decision making.