I find the author goes from idiocy to genious, but is hard to dismiss when discussing startup investment. Should be read as a business book for new companies. ( )

Peter Thiel is a bad person. There's lots of stuff in this book that seems just plain wrong. Maybe the overall thrust of the book is wrong. But.

It's short, cogently written, and has an undeniable perspective. And there are certainly useful nuggets all over the place. ( )

quite interesting views on startups, technology, philosophy, etc. ( )

A second time re-read. Peter's contrarian opinion is always fascinating. Recently read Lean Startup and wanted to know how Steve Blank and Peter Thiel differ or converge. While Peter emphasises on power of vision and importance of bold plans, Steve gives a practical model in implementing and executing the vision. ( )

Блять, сука! Ахуительная книга! Первые 5-6 глав просто кайф! ( )

The successful entrepreneur looks for transformative growth by figuring out what common truth is wrong. When applied to market opportunity, combined with the right team and progressive advancements into larger markets, the results far surpass competing on a level playing field. ( )

Goods bits, but not as actionable as I expected it to be. ( )

A refreshing break from the usual startup babble out there. Theil doesn't just regurgitate the same old cliches about "thinking outside the box" or "disrupting the industry." Instead, Thiel focuses on creating something entirely new and being the first to do it - that's what he means by "zero to one." ( )

Book Name: Zero to one
Author: Peter Thiel
Format: Paperback

My Review:
It was only after watching the movie - ' The Social Network ' recently again, I realised who Pater Thiel was. He was the initial investor on Facebook when Mark Zuckerberg first created the Facebook first version. Rest is history.

In this book, Peter explains all his experiences from his Paypal days to date. The book got released in 2014, and I got to read after these many years. The book is mostly all about the start-ups and its world. The book has all his experiences that start with Paypal until Space X, which he invested in many start-ups.

In the later chapters he focuses mainly on the below four points:

1. Horizontal vs Vertical Progress.
Peter explains the differences and advantages between these both. He says Horizontal progress is usually caused by adopting new technologies in other countries, adding more capital or people. And, inventing new technologies that will allow workers to do more with less is the vertical progress.

2. Going from 0 to 1
Next, he explains that Going from 0 to 1 is an example of vertical progress. This mostly happens when there is a considerable leap curve change in the existing technology. It is like Essentially instead of making a better teddy bear toy, invent a new soft toy or anything of that sort.

3. Competition vs Monopoly
It is a norm that being competitive or living in the competition is good. But Peter disagrees. He says it is a routine thought that competitive markets are fair and monopolies are bad. But he defies it with an interesting example(s).

4. Thoughts on Secrets
According to Thiel, there are two kinds of secrets: secrets about nature and people. This impressive articulation gave new insights.

This book looks dry and disinteresting in the first look, and there is so much philosophy hidden between every line he discussed. I will indeed read his other works if any available or else I will wait for them!

Rating: 4/5


( )

Very inspiring even though not everything rings true (or fair, for that matter). If only the man had a better taste in presidential candidates... ( )

Starts well, becomes trite, ends delusional. ( )

Good summary of the thoughts of the Author. Somewhat repetitive but overall a good read

Take the world from Zero to One by founding a tech startup to create a monopoly to make the world a better place, while making as much profit as you can. That’s the core belief of this book, which makes sense why it resonates with Silicon Valley, it essentially gives validation that everything they’re striving for is more than just a good way to make money, but noble even. I certainly am a fan of technology, and the idea of small companies being able to bring about great change, yet while I’m certainly no billionaire I do take issue with a few points in the book. Overall though, it’s a wonderful book with great advice to help you guide your thinking to make a startup.

It starts by asking the reader to ask themselves a question “What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”, which a good answer to this question can be the foundation of a new business, how many thought that we’d share our cars on Uber, or that searching based on PageRank was that much better? The question reframed is sometimes easier to answer, “What does everyone agree on” and try to identify a delusional popular belief. Throughout Thiel has the reader consider questions if they want to start a business:

0. The Contrarian Question

What important truth do very few people agree with you on?

1. The Engineering Question

Can you create a breakthrough tech instead of an incremental tech?

2. The Timing Question

Is now the right time?

3. The Monopoly Question

Are you starting with a big share of a small market?

4. The People Question

Do you have the right team?

5. The Distribution Question

Do you have a way to deliver?

6. The Durability Question

Can you defend market position for 10-20 years?

7. The Secret Question

Have you identified a unique opportunity?

However Zero to One is more than just a book on how to found a startup, it’s very much a philosophical book for Peter Thiel. He espouses the greatness of technology and monopolies over and over, and how competition is holding companies back from being greater, and by extension society. It boils down to the belief that a company with a monopoly can focus its profits on new ideas, free to not worry about its competition. A company with competition is focused on surviving, undercutting each other to get the sale and minimizing profits, stagnating growth and the ability to experiment. Much of the book is basically reinforcing this point. I agree, partially with this idea. Monopolies have as much potential for growth and stagnation, just look at the monopolies of the ISP business, or Monsanto with corn, and especially in the past with De Beers, Standard Oil, AT&T, etc… They had/have monopolistic often to the detriment of society. But at the same time monopolies like Google, NetFlix, and FaceBook are often, generally, for the betterment of society. It’s not nearly so clean cut as Thiel proposes, additionally while monopolies may be good for business’ profits, for consumers, competition drives prices down. I believe Thiel would argue that there’s a difference between a commodity market and the tech market, but in Zero to One, he goes on about the magnificence of monopolies.

Regardless of the philosophy within, the book is first and foremost for wannabe founders to help jazz themselves up to start their company, and give them a basis of questions to ask themselves to help make a good startup. Ultimately I wish I could give this 4.5 stars, but it’s a book well worth reading and does challenge the reader to think.

Below are my notes from the book, I've added the official chapter note plus my scratch notes I took while reading.
--------------------------------------------------------------
0: Foreword

* Every moment in business happens only once.
* Easier: Doing what we know takes the world from 1 to n.
* Harder: Creating something new takes the world from 0 to 1
* Technology lets us do more with less.
* There is no formula for entrepreneurship, every innovation is new and unique.
* Single most powerful pattern is that successful people find value in unexpected places, and they do this by thinking about business from first principles instead of formulas.

1: The Challenge of the Future
“What important truth do few people agree with you on?” Answering this deceptively tricky question is the key to any future of progress—and to building a great business.

“What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”

* Most answers are bad, too many give common answers.
* A good answer takes the form of “Most people believe in x but the truth is the opposite of y
* Good answers are as close as we can come to looking into the future.
* Tech >> globalization
* Current tech is not perfect, if the whole world had American standards it’d be a disaster. We need new tech.
* Startup: The largest group of people you can convince of a plan to build a different future.
* Most import asset: Networking
* 0 to 1: Technology, vertical or intensive progress. Doing new things
* 1 to n: Globalization, horizontal or extensive progress, copying things that work

2: Party Like It’s 1999
The dogmas created after the dot-com crash continue to haunt us today. The first step to thinking clearly is to question what we think we know about the past.

* The contrarian question is difficult to answer directly, easier to ask “What does everyone agree on” and try to identify a delusional popular belief.
* Bubble: The collapse of a conventional belief, usually only understood to be arbitrary and wrong in retrospect.
* First step to thinking clearly is to question what we think we know about the past
* Paypal’s grand mission: Create a new internet currency to replace the USD

* Lessons from the Dot-Com Bubble for most:
1. Make incremental advances

Great vision leads to failure, small steps is safer

2. Stay lean and flexible

Be unplanned, iterate out, no long-term plans

3. Improve on competition

Don’t create a new market, go with a known customer use case

4. Focus on product, not sales

Your product should speak for itself

* More correct principles:

1. It is better to risk boldness than triviality
2. A bad plan is better than no plan
3. Competitive markets destroy profits
4. Sales matter as much as product (if not more)

* How much you know about business is shaped by mistaken reactions to past mistakes
* The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd, but to think for yourself.

3: All Happy Companies are Different
The most successful businesses share one key feature that enables them to innovate at unprecedented scale.

* Business version of the contrarian question “What valuable company is nobody building?”
* Creating value =/= valuable, need to capture some of the value
* Airlines: $178 per trip, only $0.37 profit while Google has 21% profit
* Perfect competition: supply=demand, market dictates prices, products are equivalent, no company makes economic profit
* Monopoly: sets prices, maximizes profit
* If you want to create and capture lasting value, don’t build an undifferentiated commodity business
* Monopolies lie to hide monopoly, hide by Unions (in the mathematical sense)
* Competitive lie: Biggest mistake a startup can make is to understate scale of competition and define market so narrowly you dominate by definition, exaggerate by intersections
* Monopolies can afford to think of things other than money
* Creative monopolies give more choices
* Equilibrium means strangulation and death
* Monopoly is the condition of every successful business
* Happy companies have monopoly for solving unique problems
* Failed companies failed to escape competition

4: The Ideology of Competition
Competition isn’t just seen as a spur to productivity—for many, it’s a way of life. But what if it’s actually holding us back?

* Creative Monopoly => new products that benefit everyone profits for creator
* Competition => no profits, no meaningful differential, struggle for survival
* The more we compete, the less we gain
* Competitors look for like, and drives more competition
* Competitions can make people hallucinate about opportunities that don’t exist. Lose sight of what if it’s worth it/is there a real market
* Can be better to merge than fight
* If forced to compete, fight to win hard and fast

5: Last Mover Advantage
Short-term thinking ruins companies. The most important lesson an entrepreneur can learn is to think big but start small.

* Value of a business today is the sum of all the money it will make in the future
* Tech companies lose money in the near term, but worth more in the long term
* For a company to be valuable it must grow and ENDURE
* Silicon value focused too much on growth
* Will business still be around in a decade?

* Characteristics of Monopoly

1. Proprietary Technology: Must be 10x better than closest substitute. Invent something new, or radically improve existing
2. Network Effects: More useful the more people who use it. Must start with especially small markets
3. Economies of Scale: Gets stronger as it gets bigger
4. Branding: Not enough of its own, builds on above three, strong branding makes monopoly stand out

* Start small and monopolize. Every startup should start with a very small market
Easier to dominate a small market. If you think it is too big, it is
* Perfect target is a small group concentrated together served by few or no competitors.
* Scaling Up: Once created and dominate niche market, gradually expand to related and slightly broader markets (e.g. Amazon Books -> CDs/Videos -> All)
* Don’t Disrupt: Don’t’ define self by competitors, don’t threaten, avoid competition

6: You Are Not a Lottery Ticket
The same question lurks behind every success: was it luck or skill? But builders aren’t backward-looking; they adopt a more definite attitude and engineer a better future.

* Skill or luck? Most say luck, but 0 to 1 says skill
* Expect future to have definite form then you can work to shape it
* You can be optimistic or pessimistic, definite or indefinite about future
* Indefinite Pessimism: Bleak Future, no idea what to do about it. React and hope things don’t get worse
* Definite Pessimism: Bleak Future, will prepare for it
* Definite Optimism: Future will be better, if one plans and works for it. Plan BIG
* Indefinite Optimism: Future will be better, no way or reason to plan to make it so. No new ideas, rearrange old ones efficiency
* How can the future get better if no one plans for it?
* Iteration won’t get 0 to 1
* Leanness is a methodology, not a goal
* A definite plan is needed
* Reject chance

7: Follow the Money
Apply it correctly, and one simple insight—almost everything is radically less equal than it appears—can change your life.

* Venture backed companies follow a power curve, not a normal
* The biggest secret in venture capital is that the best investment in a successful fund equals or outperforms the rest of the fund consolidated.

VC Rules:
1. Only invest in firms that can return the value of the entire fund
2. There is no rule 2

* Every company in a good venture fund must have the potential to success at a vast scale
* Power law takes time to be revealed, lost in daily commotion
* Life is not a portfolio, cannot diversify
* You should focus relentlessly on something you’re good at doing, but before you must think hard about whether it will be valuable in the future
* Power law means difference between companies are more important than roles inside a company
* Not everyone should be a founder

8: Secrets
Every one of today’s most famous and familiar ideas was once unknown and unsuspected. Lots more secrets remain undiscovered; learn to find them and see your fortune rise.

* You must find a secret to uncover
* People today believe there are no more secrets due to:

1. Incrementalism
2. Risk Aversion
3. Complacency
4. Flatness

* Companies which invest, discover secrets, gain monopolies
* You can’t find secrets without looking for them
* Must be relentless, will be lonely
* Consider open but untapped secrets, e.g. AirBnb, Uber
* 2 kinds of secrets: Nature People
* When thinking of what company to build ask:
· What secrets is nature not telling you?
· What secrets are people not telling you?
* People with tons of knowledge feel they know everything

9: Foundations
The decisions you make today will govern what your business looks like years now. Every entrepreneur has to get a few things right from the start.

* A startup messed up at its foundation cannot be fixed
* First and most important decision is whom to start with
* Founders should know each other before founding
* Ownership: Who legally owns the company’s equity
* Possession: Who runs the company’s day to day operations
* Control: Who formally governs the company’s affairs
* Most conflict between ownership and control
* Less is more in the boardroom, 3-5 people
* Everyone involved in the company should be full time, on-site
* A company does better the less it pays its CEO, * Cash is not king, pay employees well, but not too well
* High salary encourages status quo
* Instead offer part ownership, drive toward the future
* Employees who want equity want it to cussed
* Don’t tell employees other’s equity

10: The Mechanics of Mafia
After PayPal, the “PayPal Mafia” created SpaceX, Tesla, LinkedIn, YouTube, Yammer, Palantir, and Yelp. The incredible story of that team will help you build yours.

* A startup is a team of people on a mission
* A team should enjoy each other in/out of work
* Ask self why should someone join your company as the 20th engineer when they could go work for Google for more money and more prestige?
* Bad Answers: Stock options, smart people, challenging problems
* Good Answers: Specific to company; about mission and team. Why you’re doing something important, no one else is going to get done. Explain why company is a unique match for them.
* From the outside, everyone in your company should be different in the same way
* Early staff should be as personally similar as possible
* On the inside every individual should be sharply distinguished by their work
* Give employees unique work and roles
* Be almost cultish, intensely dedicated to the mission and work

11: If You Build It, Will They Come?
The best product does not always win. Great products do not sell themselves. That’s up to you, and the problem is much stranger than it seems.

* Sadly, salesmen are needed
* No one is above advertising
* Advertising exists to drive sales through subtle impressions
* Sales is hidden salesmen are actors
* Everything is driven by persuading others
* Complex sales ~$10 million/sale, only 1-2 per month
* Personal sales $10-$100k/sale, many sales
* $1k, no good answer
* Viral- find valuable uses first
* Need one channel to work
* Need PR Strategy

12: Man and Machine
20 years ago, people feared cheap foreign labor; today, it’s replacement by robots. But the most successful entrepreneurs make products that help humans, not automate them away.

* Computer compliment people in a valuable company, not substitute

13: Seeing Green
Clean energy is a hugely important sector—and to date it’s been a huge flop, as entrepreneurs neglected to answer the seven questions that every business must get right.

7 Questions Every business must answer
1. The Engineering Question

Can you create a breakthrough tech instead of an incremental tech?

2. The Timing Question

Is now the right time?

3. The Monopoly Question

Are you starting with a big share of a small market?

4. The People Question

Do you have the right team?

5. The Distribution Question

Do you have a way to deliver?

6. The Durability Question

Can you defend market position for 10-20 years?

7. The Secret Question

Have you identified a unique opportunity?

* Never invest in a CEO in a suit

14: The Founder’s Paradox
Founders are contradictory: revered and abhorred, powerful and weak. Just as we need founders in all their peculiarity, founders need to understand a few things to survive. ( )

Zero to One is what is promised on the cover; notes.

It's an organised compilation of notes containing studies of different startups, business theories and other relevant event updates. The book is entirely about the working behind the success (and failure) of businesses.

For someone who wants to move from zero to that ONEth step, to found a startup, this book could serve as the reality checklist. ( )

Some good insights amidst a torrent of generalizations based on n = 1.

The advice to focus on niche, power user customers first (as opposed to competing head-on with the incumbents) is genius. His discussion of competition vs monopoly is also great food for thought. But you get that at the cost of many pages of “X is a good strategy because I say it is”. Also, he doesn’t understand trade. And some passages haven’t aged well even though it’s a 3-year old book (e.g. his downplaying machine learning because it can only achieve ~75% accuracy in cat detection; boy, what a difference three years can make).

Still worth it though - the book is short and you can finish in less than a day. ( )

While reading Elon Musk's biography, he touches quite a bit on his time at Paypal, including working with Peter Thiel. When I realized Thiel also had a biography out, I knew it would be next.

This book leads with a question: "What important truth do very few people agree with you on?". When I heard this, I had to pause the audiobook and think this one through. Before I knew it, I'd been stewing on this question for over an hour!

The next biggest takeaway was the idea that the next "big thing" won't be a tweak on existing piece of software, but a completely new market. Bill Gates won the operating system money. Google the Search Engine market. Facebook the social network. It's better to dive into a new category than try to copy an existing one. ( )

The title is the message. Gives good insight into the minds of top entrepreneurs. ( )

This book wasn’t a typical read for me and I don’t know a whole lot about business in general, but what I did like about this book was that he didn’t push the “just work really hard and you’ll be successful” agenda. He made it clear that there’s more to it than hard work, wanting something badly enough, and having luck. Also, the fact that I could make it thru this book to the end says something. ( )

This is a pretty good read! It was hard to put down---I devoured it in less than 24 hours.

Thiel has some poignant arguments in Zero to One. There's a lot of good takeaways for people who want to change the world and shape the future. But there's also chapter 10, which focuses on ways in which companies fail. This was particularly interesting to me in that it perfectly described my last company---we all knew it was fundamentally dysfunctional, but Thiel somehow managed to describe *almost every single problem we faced.*

I get the impression that Thiel knows what he's talking about. Combined with an inspiring message, it's worth your time. ( )

Obviously, one would defer to to Peter Thiel when it comes to making a business, but this book really didn't cut it. I felt there were a lot of generalizations and commentary, and significantly lesser hard research.
Regardless of that, the book was a fun read and only 140 pages, and did have SOME golden advice.

3 stars. ( )

Quick read with some historical narratives on Silicon Valley startups, some current narratives about Tesla and other successes, some insights, such as the interview question "What important truth do very few people agree with you on?" overall a nice quick primer. ( )

Follow it up with "How to start a startup" on youtube. ( )

Very concise, very valuable! ( )

Excellent book. Must read for every entrepreneur! Peter Thiel is a great thinker and founder. I love his contrarian and "think for yourself" approach. You won't regret reading this book. Go buy it now. ( )

Not impressed. The author cited many obvious examples of leading companies such as Google, Apple and Amazon and how they monopolize the market. This doesn't really teach us how to build a small company.

There are controversial tips in this book too like cater to the small market first (instead of general market). This tip only applies to large Internet startup (already has reach of millions people on the internet) and they can focus on a niche market more easily. Other companies such as f and b probably needs to reach out to as many people as they can.

The first half of the book is Peter Thiel's opinions on business. The second half contains tips to manage a startup, mainly Internet startups.

Then he also talk about obvious stuff like finding a good team and man vs machine. He also talk about his own company.

Not a recommended read. There are better books on startups or marketing. ( )