Yes, it's thick. But it's those thick parts that will carry somebody through to the ideas. People tend to process things very differently. In general, the tech community feeds on, trades in, and works to realize and actualize ideas. Narratives get broken down to time lines, little nubs that help get to the ideas quickly, for example.

Others need / want context. Who has the idea? What motivates them? How are they as a person? Etc... In this way, ideas are a social thing. People, who may not be informed or able to work with the bare nature or essence of an idea can often get something out of a longer form, people centric, presentation. Another example would be, "How does Peter's life experience compare to my own, or to others that I trust or believe in?"

Trust plays an important role.

I see this distinction often in advocacy. Libertarians, as a great example, will often go to great lengths to demonstrate the technical purity, accuracy, and logical consistency of their ideas. In a very real sense, they've sorted it out to be "right" by some measure, and where that measure is consistent across individuals, they all will center on a few ideas and seek to include others.

Nothing wrong with this. Just making a point, mind you all.

This type of advocacy centers on the rational. And it's often framed as and presented in ways that are comparable to debate. But that isn't how everybody works. Effective advocates, and by effective I mean being able to reach very large numbers of people and seeing more of those people motivated to act on the product of the advocacy than average, employ all three components: reason, emotion, character. (logos, pathos, ethos http://courses.durhamtech.edu/perkins/aris.html)

This means large swaths of people cannot / will not even hear Peter and his ideas without sufficient context to warrant the exercise. "Who is Peter Thiel?" as a question actually matters, and it's not just fluff, which is why the New Yorker presents in long form as it so often does. And there is trust potential in that the person may well be one that "makes sense" or is appealing in some way, adding that resonance to an idea.

A contrast to this might be the religious right, where the reason may not be potent, but character and strong emotion can be linked to values and ideas anyway. One sees simple ideas, attractive in that they aren't complex things and in how they may resonate with our basic nature, coupled with strong characters and emotions that back the ideas, long form as we see here, in ways that do reach people while not centering on rational merits.

Where somebody like Thiel may center on the reason, the religious right may center on the person and emotion, for example.

This can also be seen in the left where the appeal is mixed in a different way through emotion and reason as the centers, leaving some slack in people and their character overall. BTW, I've always thought this is contributing to why the left does as well on social issues as it often does and embodies tolerance. It's core to how and why the advocacy works as it does. And that plays out too, with the left often expressing economic ideas in more complicated forms with mixed results too.

You might see some of those differently, and that's OK. They are not absolute statements. We can and do see a variety of presentations and advocacy forms. A lot of the perception I'm presenting here depends on how familiar one is with the various types of advocacy and where we fall on the scale of what actually will reach us and motivate us to act, or at least (re)consider. Coarse differences can be seen through this kind of lens, and that's my intent, not to argue one over the other, or merits.

*I included some brief contrast incorporating several politics here to provide some support for my point, not to argue merit.

Seeing down votes suggests breaking that out and making it clear might be worth doing. It's not my intent to offend or make a value judgement. It is my intent to highlight the merits of this piece, and speak to it's style.

The primary point I'm making is the New Yorker can and does reach a lot of people in ways that are relevant and effective, which is why they do what they do. And we need that as much as we do the other forms and presentations out there so that the body politic is inclusive and relevant to everyone. We know that story, and we know something of who Peter is. A large portion of the New Yorker audience probably does not.

In a very simple sense, it's a lot like preparing a great meal to feature an ingredient rather than a spartan one where the ingredient stands alone, bare, depending only on it's intrinsic appeal. Some people will try it to experience it. Others won't. But they will experience it in the context of a great meal overall.

Edit: For what it's worth, understanding advocacy, it's components and various forms is valuable professionally. The selling of ideas and things sometimes requires reaching people who may not center on familiar norms. A longer form proposal, for example, may reach that person in ways that resonate where a Power Point, or other brief presentation might not. Understanding who, when, how has high value, again why I put this here.