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Zero to One
Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
Peter Thiel with Blake Masters · 2014
business
Competition is overrated. The prize is building the one thing nobody else has figured out yet.
About the book
Zero to One argues that real progress comes from doing something new, going from zero to one, rather than copying what works and going from one to many. Thiel makes the case that the best businesses look more like monopolies than crowded competitors, and that founders should think for themselves about what the future needs.
About the author
Peter Thiel co-founded PayPal and Palantir and was an early investor in Facebook. The book grew out of a class he taught at Stanford on startups, co-written with his student Blake Masters.
Key ideas
- Going from zero to one, building something new, is harder and worth more than going from one to many by copying.
- Competition is overrated. The aim is a monopoly built on doing something better than anyone, not a race to the bottom.
- The contrarian question: what important truth do very few people agree with you on?
- Great companies are built on a secret, something true and valuable that most people have not figured out yet.