Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future

by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters

WHAT VALUABLE COMPANY IS NOBODY BUILDING?

The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them. It’s easier to copy a model than to make something new: doing what we already know how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. Every new creation goes from 0 to 1. This book is about how to get there.

‘Peter Thiel has built multiple breakthrough companies, and Zero to One shows how.’
ELON MUSK, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla

‘This book delivers completely new and refreshing ideas on how to create value in the world.’
MARK ZUCKERBERG, CEO of Facebook

‘When a risk taker writes a book, read it. In the case of Peter Thiel, read it twice. Or, to be safe, three times. This is a classic.’
NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB, author of The Black Swan

• ISBN10: 0753555204
• ISBN13: 9780753555200
• Publish Date: 4 June 2015 (first published 1 January 2014)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Virgin Books
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 224
• Language: English

Reviews

[adamfortuna]

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.