Zero to One_ Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future ( PDFDrive )

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SEEING GREENAT THE START of the 21st century, everyone agreed that the next big thing was cleantechnology. It had to be: in Beijing, the smog had gotten so bad that peoplecouldn’t see from building to building—even breathing was a health risk.Bangladesh, with its arsenic-laden water wells, was suffering what the New YorkTimes called “the biggest mass poisoning in history.” In the U.S., HurricanesIvan and Katrina were said to be harbingers of the coming devastation fromglobal warming. Al Gore implored us to attack these problems “with the urgencyand resolve that has previously been seen only when nations mobilized for war.”People got busy: entrepreneurs started thousands of cleantech companies, andinvestors poured more than $50 billion into them. So began the quest to cleansethe world.It didn’t work. Instead of a healthier planet, we got a massive cleantechbubble. Solyndra is the most famous green ghost, but most cleantech companiesmet similarly disastrous ends—more than 40 solar manufacturers went out ofbusiness or filed for bankruptcy in 2012 alone. The leading index of alternativeenergy companies shows the bubble’s dramatic deflation:
Why did cleantech fail? Conservatives think they already know the answer: assoon as green energy became a priority for the government, it was poisoned. Butthere really were (and there still are) good reasons for making energy a priority.And the truth about cleantech is more complex and more important thangovernment failure. Most cleantech companies crashed because they neglectedone or more of the seven questions that every business must answer:1. The Engineering QuestionCan you create breakthrough technology instead of incrementalimprovements?2. The Timing QuestionIs now the right time to start your particular business?3. The Monopoly QuestionAre you starting with a big share of a small market?4. The People QuestionDo you have the right team?
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Copyright © 2014 by Peter ThielAll
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PrefaceZERO TO ONEEVERY MOMENT IN B
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THE CHALLENGE OF THE FUTUREWHENEVER
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century air conditioning, and even
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STARTUP THINKINGNew technology tend
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A QUICK HISTORY OF THE ’90SThe 19
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MANIA: SEPTEMBER 1998-MARCH 2000Dot
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hurry. A South Korean firm wired us
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The entrepreneurs who stuck with Si
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dogmatically rejecting them. Instea
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In this book, we’re not intereste
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Think about how Google talks about
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between Hackers and Jaws: rap star
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RUTHLESS PEOPLEThe problem with a c
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monopoly profits provides a powerfu
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competed even harder for the standa
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Office vs. Docs, and Surface vs. Ne
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If you can’t beat a rival, it may
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In March 2001, PayPal had yet to ma
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CHARACTERISTICS OF MONOPOLYWhat doe
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3. Economies of ScaleA monopoly bus
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BUILDING A MONOPOLYBrand, scale, ne
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Silicon Valley has become obsessed
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YOU ARE NOT A LOTTERY TICKETTHE MOS
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CAN YOU CONTROL YOUR FUTURE?You can
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merry in the meantime: hence Europe
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hubris. You can still visit the Bay
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businessman, but actually his own a
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opinion exactly, so for the most pa
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Francis Bacon wrote that “the pro
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American households were saving, at
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THE RETURN OF DESIGNWhat would it m
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YOU ARE NOT A LOTTERY TICKETWe have
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to understand: we don’t live in a
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The error lies in expecting that ve
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of companies that will successfully
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After 10 years, however, the portfo
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WHAT TO DO WITH THE POWER LAWThe po
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SECRETSEVERY ONE OF TODAY’S most
Page 81 and 82: WHY AREN’T PEOPLE LOOKING FOR SEC
Page 83 and 84: are found mostly in history books a
Page 85 and 86: THE WORLD ACCORDING TO CONVENTIONHo
Page 87 and 88: THE CASE FOR SECRETSYou can’t fin
Page 89 and 90: HOW TO FIND SECRETSThere are two ki
Page 91 and 92: WHAT TO DO WITH SECRETSIf you find
Page 93 and 94: FOUNDING MATRIMONYWhen you start so
Page 95 and 96: To see misalignment at its most ext
Page 97 and 98: ON THE BUS OR OFF THE BUSAs a gener
Page 99 and 100: VESTED INTERESTSStartups don’t ne
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Page 103 and 104: BEYOND PROFESSIONALISMThe first tea
Page 105 and 106: compensation or perks, but you can
Page 107 and 108: DO ONE THINGOn the inside, every in
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Page 111 and 112: NERDS VS. SALESMENThe U.S. advertis
Page 113 and 114: himself). The polar opposite busine
Page 115 and 116: The traditional U.S. aerospace indu
Page 117 and 118: mass appeal but lack any method of
Page 119 and 120: One of these methods is likely to b
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Page 123 and 124: SUBSTITUTION VS. COMPLEMENTARITYFif
Page 125 and 126: people. We don’t trade with compu
Page 127 and 128: computer hybrid approach from PayPa
Page 129: generalized artificial intelligence
Page 134 and 135: 5. The Distribution QuestionDo you
Page 136 and 137: THE TIMING QUESTIONCleantech entrep
Page 138 and 139: THE MONOPOLY QUESTIONIn 2006, billi
Page 140 and 141: Cleantech entrepreneurs’ thinking
Page 142 and 143: THE DISTRIBUTION QUESTIONCleantech
Page 144 and 145: gas, and gas prices had fallen more
Page 146 and 147: THE MYTH OF SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Page 148 and 149: broader markets in the future.TEAM.
Page 150 and 151: world needs energy, only a firm tha
Page 152 and 153: THE FOUNDER’S PARADOXOF THE SIX P
Page 154 and 155: THE DIFFERENCE ENGINESome people ar
Page 156 and 157: Where does this strange and extreme
Page 158 and 159: Another example is Sean Parker, who
Page 160 and 161: WHERE KINGS COME FROMExtreme founde
Page 162 and 163: For some fallen stars, death brings
Page 164 and 165: distinctive persona? Or, in his inc
Page 166 and 167: the impeccably credentialed executi
Page 168 and 169: future will look a lot like the pre
Page 170 and 171: Singularity, an attempt to name the
Page 172 and 173: Illustration CreditsThe illustratio
Page 174 and 175: Boyle, RobertbrandingBranson, Richa
Page 176 and 177: Earnhardt, Dale, Jr.East Asian fina
Page 178 and 179: housing bubble, 2.1, 8.1Howery, Ken
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Q-CellsRand, AynRawls, John, 6.1, 6
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globalization andproprietarytechnol
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About the AuthorsPeter Thiel is an
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Zero to One_ Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future ( PDFDrive )

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