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

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Zero to One is about how to build companies that create new things. It drawson everything I’ve learned directly as a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir andthen an investor in hundreds of startups, including Facebook and SpaceX. Butwhile I have noticed many patterns, and I relate them here, this book offers noformula for success. The paradox of teaching entrepreneurship is that such aformula necessarily cannot exist; because every innovation is new and unique,no authority can prescribe in concrete terms how to be innovative. Indeed, thesingle most powerful pattern I have noticed is that successful people find valuein unexpected places, and they do this by thinking about business from firstprinciples instead of formulas.This book stems from a course about startups that I taught at Stanford in 2012.College students can become extremely skilled at a few specialties, but manynever learn what to do with those skills in the wider world. My primary goal inteaching the class was to help my students see beyond the tracks laid down byacademic specialties to the broader future that is theirs to create. One of thosestudents, Blake Masters, took detailed class notes, which circulated far beyondthe campus, and in Zero to One I have worked with him to revise the notes for awider audience. There’s no reason why the future should happen only atStanford, or in college, or in Silicon Valley.
THE CHALLENGE OF THE FUTUREWHENEVER I INTERVIEW someone for a job, I like to ask this question: “What importanttruth do very few people agree with you on?”This question sounds easy because it’s straightforward. Actually, it’s very hardto answer. It’s intellectually difficult because the knowledge that everyone istaught in school is by definition agreed upon. And it’s psychologically difficultbecause anyone trying to answer must say something she knows to be unpopular.Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply than genius.Most commonly, I hear answers like the following:“Our educational system is broken and urgently needs to be fixed.”“America is exceptional.”“There is no God.”Those are bad answers. The first and the second statements might be true, butmany people already agree with them. The third statement simply takes one sidein a familiar debate. A good answer takes the following form: “Most peoplebelieve in x, but the truth is the opposite of x.” I’ll give my own answer later inthis chapter.What does this contrarian question have to do with the future? In the mostminimal sense, the future is simply the set of all moments yet to come. But whatmakes the future distinctive and important isn’t that it hasn’t happened yet, butrather that it will be a time when the world looks different from today. In thissense, if nothing about our society changes for the next 100 years, then the futureis over 100 years away. If things change radically in the next decade, then thefuture is nearly at hand. No one can predict the future exactly, but we know twothings: it’s going to be different, and it must be rooted in today’s world. Mostanswers to the contrarian question are different ways of seeing the present; goodanswers are as close as we can come to looking into the future.
Page 3 and 4: Copyright © 2014 by Peter ThielAll
Page 5: PrefaceZERO TO ONEEVERY MOMENT IN B
Page 9 and 10: century air conditioning, and even
Page 11 and 12: STARTUP THINKINGNew technology tend
Page 13 and 14: A QUICK HISTORY OF THE ’90SThe 19
Page 15 and 16: MANIA: SEPTEMBER 1998-MARCH 2000Dot
Page 17 and 18: hurry. A South Korean firm wired us
Page 19 and 20: The entrepreneurs who stuck with Si
Page 21 and 22: dogmatically rejecting them. Instea
Page 23 and 24: In this book, we’re not intereste
Page 25 and 26: Think about how Google talks about
Page 27 and 28: between Hackers and Jaws: rap star
Page 29 and 30: RUTHLESS PEOPLEThe problem with a c
Page 31 and 32: monopoly profits provides a powerfu
Page 33 and 34: competed even harder for the standa
Page 35 and 36: Office vs. Docs, and Surface vs. Ne
Page 37 and 38: If you can’t beat a rival, it may
Page 39 and 40: In March 2001, PayPal had yet to ma
Page 41 and 42: CHARACTERISTICS OF MONOPOLYWhat doe
Page 43 and 44: 3. Economies of ScaleA monopoly bus
Page 45 and 46: BUILDING A MONOPOLYBrand, scale, ne
Page 47 and 48: Silicon Valley has become obsessed
Page 49 and 50: YOU ARE NOT A LOTTERY TICKETTHE MOS
Page 51 and 52: CAN YOU CONTROL YOUR FUTURE?You can
Page 53 and 54: merry in the meantime: hence Europe
Page 55 and 56: 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
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WHY AREN’T PEOPLE LOOKING FOR SEC
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are found mostly in history books a
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THE WORLD ACCORDING TO CONVENTIONHo
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THE CASE FOR SECRETSYou can’t fin
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HOW TO FIND SECRETSThere are two ki
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WHAT TO DO WITH SECRETSIf you find
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FOUNDING MATRIMONYWhen you start so
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To see misalignment at its most ext
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ON THE BUS OR OFF THE BUSAs a gener
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VESTED INTERESTSStartups don’t ne
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10
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BEYOND PROFESSIONALISMThe first tea
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compensation or perks, but you can
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DO ONE THINGOn the inside, every in
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11
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NERDS VS. SALESMENThe U.S. advertis
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himself). The polar opposite busine
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The traditional U.S. aerospace indu
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mass appeal but lack any method of
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One of these methods is likely to b
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12
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SUBSTITUTION VS. COMPLEMENTARITYFif
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people. We don’t trade with compu
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computer hybrid approach from PayPa
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generalized artificial intelligence
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SEEING GREENAT THE START of the 21s
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5. The Distribution QuestionDo you
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THE TIMING QUESTIONCleantech entrep
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THE MONOPOLY QUESTIONIn 2006, billi
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Cleantech entrepreneurs’ thinking
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THE DISTRIBUTION QUESTIONCleantech
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gas, and gas prices had fallen more
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THE MYTH OF SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP
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broader markets in the future.TEAM.
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world needs energy, only a firm tha
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THE FOUNDER’S PARADOXOF THE SIX P
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THE DIFFERENCE ENGINESome people ar
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Where does this strange and extreme
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Another example is Sean Parker, who
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WHERE KINGS COME FROMExtreme founde
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For some fallen stars, death brings
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distinctive persona? Or, in his inc
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the impeccably credentialed executi
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future will look a lot like the pre
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Singularity, an attempt to name the
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Illustration CreditsThe illustratio
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Boyle, RobertbrandingBranson, Richa
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Earnhardt, Dale, Jr.East Asian fina
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housing bubble, 2.1, 8.1Howery, Ken
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dynamism of newlies ofprofits ofpro
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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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