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

Recommendations

Info

by believing in and looking for secrets could you see beyond the convention toan opportunity hidden in plain sight. The same reason that so many internetcompanies, including Facebook, are often underestimated—their very simplicity—is itself an argument for secrets. If insights that look so elementary inretrospect can support important and valuable businesses, there must remainmany great companies still to start.
HOW TO FIND SECRETSThere are two kinds of secrets: secrets of nature and secrets about people.Natural secrets exist all around us; to find them, one must study someundiscovered aspect of the physical world. Secrets about people are different:they are things that people don’t know about themselves or things they hidebecause they don’t want others to know. So when thinking about what kind ofcompany to build, there are two distinct questions to ask: What secrets is naturenot telling you? What secrets are people not telling you?It’s easy to assume that natural secrets are the most important: the people wholook for them can sound intimidatingly authoritative. This is why physics PhDsare notoriously difficult to work with—because they know the most fundamentaltruths, they think they know all truths. But does understanding electromagnetictheory automatically make you a great marriage counselor? Does a gravitytheorist know more about your business than you do? At PayPal, I onceinterviewed a physics PhD for an engineering job. Halfway through my firstquestion, he shouted, “Stop! I already know what you’re going to ask!” But hewas wrong. It was the easiest no-hire decision I’ve ever made.Secrets about people are relatively underappreciated. Maybe that’s becauseyou don’t need a dozen years of higher education to ask the questions thatuncover them: What are people not allowed to talk about? What is forbidden ortaboo?Sometimes looking for natural secrets and looking for human secrets lead tothe same truth. Consider the monopoly secret again: competition and capitalismare opposites. If you didn’t already know it, you could discover it the natural,empirical way: do a quantitative study of corporate profits and you’ll see they’reeliminated by competition. But you could also take the human approach and ask:what are people running companies not allowed to say? You would notice thatmonopolists downplay their monopoly status to avoid scrutiny, whilecompetitive firms strategically exaggerate their uniqueness. The differencesbetween firms only seem small on the surface; in fact, they are enormous.The best place to look for secrets is where no one else is looking. Most peoplethink only in terms of what they’ve been taught; schooling itself aims to impartconventional wisdom. So you might ask: are there any fields that matter buthaven’t been standardized and institutionalized? Physics, for example, is a real
Page 3 and 4:
Copyright © 2014 by Peter ThielAll
Page 5 and 6:
PrefaceZERO TO ONEEVERY MOMENT IN B
Page 7 and 8:
THE CHALLENGE OF THE FUTUREWHENEVER
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
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 and 80: 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: THE CASE FOR SECRETSYou can’t fin
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
Page 101 and 102: 10
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
Page 121 and 122: 12
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 132 and 133: SEEING GREENAT THE START of the 21s
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
Page 180 and 181:
dynamism of newlies ofprofits ofpro
Page 182 and 183:
Q-CellsRand, AynRawls, John, 6.1, 6
Page 184 and 185:
globalization andproprietarytechnol
Page 186:
About the AuthorsPeter Thiel is an
show all

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

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?