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

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to be started. This chapter will help you think about secrets and how to findthem.
WHY AREN’T PEOPLE LOOKING FOR SECRETS?Most people act as if there were no secrets left to find. An extremerepresentative of this view is Ted Kaczynski, infamously known as theUnabomber. Kaczynski was a child prodigy who enrolled at Harvard at 16. Hewent on to get a PhD in math and become a professor at UC Berkeley. Butyou’ve only ever heard of him because of the 17-year terror campaign he wagedwith pipe bombs against professors, technologists, and businesspeople.In late 1995, the authorities didn’t know who or where the Unabomber was.The biggest clue was a 35,000-word manifesto that Kaczynski had written andanonymously mailed to the press. The FBI asked some prominent newspapers topublish it, hoping for a break in the case. It worked: Kaczynski’s brotherrecognized his writing style and turned him in.You might expect that writing style to have shown obvious signs of insanity,but the manifesto is eerily cogent. Kaczynski claimed that in order to be happy,every individual “needs to have goals whose attainment requires effort, andneeds to succeed in attaining at least some of his goals.” He divided human goalsinto three groups:1. Goals that can be satisfied with minimal effort;2. Goals that can be satisfied with serious effort; and3. Goals that cannot be satisfied, no matter how much effort one makes.This is the classic trichotomy of the easy, the hard, and the impossible.Kaczynski argued that modern people are depressed because all the world’s hardproblems have already been solved. What’s left to do is either easy orimpossible, and pursuing those tasks is deeply unsatisfying. What you can do,even a child can do; what you can’t do, even Einstein couldn’t have done. SoKaczynski’s idea was to destroy existing institutions, get rid of all technology,and let people start over and work on hard problems anew.Kaczynski’s methods were crazy, but his loss of faith in the technologicalfrontier is all around us. Consider the trivial but revealing hallmarks of urbanhipsterdom: faux vintage photography, the handlebar mustache, and vinyl record
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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
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
Page 57 and 58: businessman, but actually his own a
Page 59 and 60: opinion exactly, so for the most pa
Page 61 and 62: Francis Bacon wrote that “the pro
Page 63 and 64: American households were saving, at
Page 65 and 66: THE RETURN OF DESIGNWhat would it m
Page 67 and 68: YOU ARE NOT A LOTTERY TICKETWe have
Page 69 and 70: to understand: we don’t live in a
Page 71 and 72: The error lies in expecting that ve
Page 73 and 74: of companies that will successfully
Page 75 and 76: After 10 years, however, the portfo
Page 77 and 78: WHAT TO DO WITH THE POWER LAWThe po
Page 79: SECRETSEVERY ONE OF TODAY’S most
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
Page 109 and 110: 11
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
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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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