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Zero to One (L) Paperback – 18 September 2014

by Peter Thiel (Author), Blake Masters (Author)

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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.

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210 pages
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Random House
Publication date

18 September 2014
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13.5 x 1.7 x 21.6 cm
ISBN-10

9780753555194
ISBN-13

978-0753555194
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Popular Highlights in this book

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The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself.
Highlighted by 8,527 Kindle readers
Simply stated, the value of a business today is the sum of all the money it will make in the future.
Highlighted by 8,372 Kindle readers
A good startup should have the potential for great scale built into its first design.
Highlighted by 7,786 Kindle readers

Product description

Review

‘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

About the Author

Peter Thiel is an entrepreneur and investor. He started PayPal in 1998, led it as CEO, and took it public in 2002, defining a new era of fast and secure online commerce. In 2004 he made the first outside investment in Facebook, where he serves as a director. The same year he launched Palantir Technologies, a software company that harnesses computers to empower human analysts in fields like national security and global finance. He has provided early funding for LinkedIn, Yelp, and dozens of successful technology startups, many run by former colleagues who have been dubbed the “PayPal Mafia.” He is a partner at Founders Fund, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm that has funded companies like SpaceX and Airbnb. He started the Thiel Fellowship, which ignited a national debate by encouraging young people to put learning before schooling, and he leads the Thiel Foundation, which works to advance technological progress and long- term thinking about the future.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0753555190
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Random House; 2014th edition (18 September 2014)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 210 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780753555194
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0753555194
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 242 g
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.5 x 1.7 x 21.6 cm
Generic Name ‏ : ‎ Book

Best Sellers Rank: #129 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2 in Entrepreneurship (Books)
- #5 in Economics Books
- #11 in Analysis & Strategy

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4.5 30,909 ratings

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Peter Thiel
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Peter Thiel is an entrepreneur and investor. He started PayPal in 1998, led it as CEO, and took it public in 2002, defining a new era of fast and secure online commerce. In 2004 he made the first outside investment in Facebook, where he serves as a director. The same year he launched Palantir Technologies, a software company that harnesses computers to empower human analysts in fields like national security and global finance. He has provided early funding for LinkedIn, Yelp, and dozens of successful technology startups, many run by former colleagues who have been dubbed the “PayPal Mafia.” He is a partner at Founders Fund, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm that has funded companies like SpaceX and Airbnb. He started the Thiel Fellowship, which ignited a national debate by encouraging young people to put learning before schooling, and he leads the Thiel Foundation, which works to advance technological progress and long-term thinking about the future.
See more on the author's page
Blake Masters
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Blake Masters was a student at Stanford Law School in 2012 when his detailed notes on Peter’s class “Computer Science 183: Startup” became an internet sensation. He is President of The Thiel Foundation and Chief Operating Officer of Thiel Capital.
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Bharath Mulakala

Imp

Reviewed in India on 3 March 2024

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Book contains the valuable information which is important for techiee

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Pooja

Good for Building startups and businesses

Reviewed in India on 21 May 2024

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This product is really good for people who want to start a startup or want to know more about business. The xplanation by graphical representation and images also help the person to understand better. Best book for new startups with great business ideas.

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Suneet

A book to initiate your 0 to 1 Journey

Reviewed in India on 11 May 2024

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The author urges how we need to look beyond the norm and convention as a society to building a better future. While the book focuses on Business excellence it incorporates the human and societal aspect of the people behind the successful businesses which helps a non business person relate to the book better. A must read for people from all walks of life, young, mid career and old...

One person found this helpful

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Diwaker bhalla

Hiii💗💗

Reviewed in India on 24 May 2024

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Bery good product.... Understood nothing.... Because i didnt read i hahhahahhaaha🤣🤣

Reviewed in India on 25 May 2024

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Good book for the entrepreneurs to start with.

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Harish Nair

this book (or better to say a compilation of notes) is about how ...

Reviewed in India on 24 June 2016

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In the words of Peter, this book (or better to say a compilation of notes) is about how to build companies that create new things. Personally, I would say this book gives a good window into the mind of a great entrepreneur like Peter, which may give solace to other entrepreneurs with out of box idea and who are not getting support from near quarters. This is not a book which will detail out the steps in the journey, but it can tell you about what to expect in the journey. And nothing about the destination – that is for each to define as their own.

In the process, there are some gems I collected. Like the contra learnings from the dot com bust –
1. Make incremental advances
2. Stay lean and flexible
3. Improve on competition
4. Focus on product , not sale
OR what Peter professes
a) It is better to risk boldness than triviality
b) A bad plan is better than no plan
c) Competitive market destroys profits
d) Sales matter as much as the product
Which one to choose – all upto you.

Peter is unapologetic about monopoly – as he views that every business is successful exactly to the extent it does what others cannot, this making monopoly the condition for every successful business. All happy companies are those who have earned a monopoly by solving a unique problem, all failed companies are those who failed to escape competition

In order to get to the monopoly, Peter suggests to analyse the business within some parameters:
a) Proprietary technology – should be 10 times better than closest substitute
b) Network effects – an expanding network of users will bring in more users. A product is viral if its core functionality encourages users to invite their friends to become users too.
c) Economies of scale – the model should have a great potential to scale in its design
d) Branding – control the customer experience

Peter prefers to start small – target a small group of particular people concentrated together and served by few or no competitors. Dominate a small market than a large one. And then scale up.

Peter also serves some words of caution - some of which may not find universal resonance, like
a) Don’t Disrupt: focus on the act of creation. Disruptors often attract undue attention and take away substantial time
b) Last will be first : Moving first is a tactic, not a goal. Focus on cash flows. It may be better to be the last mover - to make the last great development in a specific market and enjoy years of monopoly profits
c) Full time involvement: Everyone you involve with your start up company should be involved full time – even remote working should be avoided to avoid any misalignment.
d) Do one thing : Make every person in the company responsible for doing just one thing
e) Human beings are irreplaceable: Complementarity between computers and human beings is the path to building a great business (e.g. LinkedIn helping recruiters than aiming to replace them)

Using the case of large scale failure of greentech companies, Peter lays out a set of seven questions that every business must answer:
1. The Engineering Question- Can you create breakthrough technology instead of incremental improvements?
2. The Timing Question- Is now the right time to start your particular business?
3. The Monopoly Question -Are you starting with a big share of a small market?
4. The People Question- Do you have the right team?
5. The Distribution Question- Do you have a way to not just create but deliver your product?
6. The Durability Question -Will your market position be defensible 10 and 20 years into the future?
7. The Secret Question - Have you identified a unique opportunity that others don’t see?

At the end, Peter addresses the question about the importance of founders. He agrees on the need to have and tolerate founders who seem strange and extreme. They are important as they can bring out the best work from everybody in the company. He also agrees that it can get dangerous when the founder is so certain of his myth that he loses his mind but he feels it is equally dangerous for a business to lose all sense of myth and mistake disenchantment for wisdom

There are many other areas on which Peter gives his views like control over future, the power law of venture capital, the case for having secrets etc. He focusses on finding singular ways to create new things that will make future not just different , but better – to go from zero to one, for which the essential step is to think for yourself. His closing comment “Only by seeing the world anew and as strange as it was to the ancients who saw it first, can we both re-create it and preserve it for the future”

The book is a recommended read as it is rare to get insights into some great minds. However, as I said in the beginning, don’t mistake this for a handbook for building a great business.

104 people found this helpful

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AB

Nice perspectives. Random Notes.Easy weekend read.

Reviewed in India on 18 March 2016

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Is it possible to evaluate a Book without the conscious & unconscious bias, either positive or negative, you may have for the Author? When the book is on startups and the author a well known serial entrepreneur, its a difficult task to separate the two.
With Peter Thiel, founder of Paypal , Palantir and a serial investor, as the author, you would be fair to expect a glimpse of his learnings and wisdom in this book. The book itself is a compilation of lectures he had given at Stanford in 2012 and based on the notes taken by a student (and coauthor of this book, Blake Masters). Personally I am fond of such books. These give an opportunity to broaden your point of view the easy way while the author would have learned the same lessons the hard way, over years of iterations of what works.
The book Cover mentions ‘Notes on Startups or How to build the future’. I read this book as ’Notes’ and suggest the reader do the same. Moment you start seeing this as ‘How to’ book, you would start expecting a deeper corroboration of various philosophies, management ideas and processes. The book has its share of contrarian ideas, philosophical articulations with somewhat weak narrative. The chapters may sound disjointed at times, making you wonder where are you headed. So keep it to ‘Notes’ and if you can add the imagery of being in Peter’s class while he delivers the lecture, you would feel happier. Read this book necessarily for author’s perspective on various things ‘startup’. Here are some of bright spots
Should a startup rather look for a large market or explore a niche instead? Should the founders be similar or different? Is sales necessary even if you have a winner product? Would a 2x improvement be incremental and sufficient or do you need 10x paradigm shift to enter the market? Would you be better disrupting or without it? Do you need a secret for a real startup idea?
I wouldn’t answer in this review but the author does in the book.
There is more. The case studies on renewable energy and Tesla make for an interesting read and so does a matrix plotting optimism-pessimism against definite-indefinite future. He then explores countries and domains on this scale of Definite Optimism, Indefinite optimism et al. There is an interesting comparative of Biotech startups vs Software Startups to draw the contrast on definite v/s indefinite view of future. The investor side of Peter Thiel also talks about VCs , portfolio lifecycle, his own experiences and investment philosophy.
The book is written in simple lucid style and should appeal more to students and those just starting into their own ventures. You may not, like me, take the articulations as gospel truths, but may want to spend more time in thinking, evaluating and experimenting with them.
It is very likely that there is more to Peter Thiel than these 195 pages would indicate. The books leaves you wanting for more. In nutshell, the positive of the book is the perspectives. And for me the bigger let down was it didn’t inspire (now that’s subjective!) But again, I guess it would have been much more a pleasure to hear these lectures live, with the advantage of articulation and aura of struggles and success of Mr. Thiel.
Easy weekend read.

6 people found this helpful

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Syeda

One of the best books about startups

Reviewed in India on 13 May 2024

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Worth the price and time.

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Samuel Jason Wijaya

book review

Reviewed in Japan on 31 January 2023

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inspiring book! really recommend for future entrepreneurs

Pieter D. Rossouw

A Propely Prescribed pair of Specacles that puts the world in focus

Reviewed in the United States on 2 December 2016

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This book is like a pair of Prescription Spectacles that put the Innovation Startup Business world, into Sharp Focus.

When I first saw the price I almost hit exit. However, I thought “If this guy has the balls to ask this price, this book had better be good”. Else I'm going to roast him in my Amazon review. I ain't roasting!!

As usual I attacked reading this book in concept extraction mode for my normal initial scan read. Chapter 6, You are not a Lottery Ticket, hit me with a Baseball bat right between the eyes. and slowed my reading pace down to almost snails'. Despite this slow first read, this Chapter deserved a re-read, at almost letter by letter speed. Almost every word or phrase brings an idea from the past, often vague, to the fore and into sharp focus. When I finished my first highlighting trip, almost every word in this chapter was lit. I had to choose and eliminate some of them.

In Zero to One, Thiel explores the world of New Business Creation. I would have loved using the word entrepreneurship but excessive and inappropriate use by “experts” have stripped this word of it's true meaning. We even invented a new version in South Africa under the ANC – Tenderpreneur.

True entrepreneurship from basics is the creation of a New business that facilitates Economic Development by providing an Inventive New Product creating a New Market Sector that facilitates New Consumer Productivity enhancing opportunities.

In Thiel's thesis, basic human attitudes can be split into a 2x2 matrix. I also tend to think in 2x2 matrixi. So this chapter fitted my mind. But Wow did he blow my mind with his various Definite vs Indefinite and Optimistic vs Pessimistic discussions. Despite many years in multinational business I could not fault the Author on any of his explanations. He clarified a lot for me. One of them “strategically humble” is certainly a new, yet valid descriptor for a company with a profitable monopoly. Yet in their Financial market press releases, they deliberately select a market description that yields for them a minority market share in a large market and not their true market share in the niche they dominate totally. (Are they hiding from Monopoly acuzations?)

A few key quotes.
”In the 1950's, Americans thought big plans for the future were too important to be left to experts”. (San Francisco Dam)

Ralph Waldo Emmerson is quoted as saying “Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances …...... Strong men believe in cause and effect.”

“you should do what you could, not focus on what you couldn't” Is to my mind the Quote of the Year.

Another hand clapper was “No one pretended that misfortune didn't exist, but prior generations believed in making their own luck by working hard”

I consider the following a nice funny; When Peter had to use either the words he or she in his text he seemed to consistently use she. I suppose this enables him to duck accusations of Sexism. Showing signs of being scared of Indefinite Pessimists?

“We have to find our way back to a definite future, and the Western World needs nothing short of a cultural revolution to do it.”
“ A startup is the largest endeavor over which you can have definite mastery. You can have agency not just over your own life,
but over a small and important part of the world. It begins by rejecting the unjust tyranny of Chance”

The rest of the book is devoted to discussing the practicalities of founding Innovative Startups successfully. These are focused at exploiting what is commonly considered a secret simply because nobody has really explored it before. Their uniqueness create innovative monopoly opportunities - the key source of profit.

One of the issues discussed is; Power Law; We all know the Pareto principle is valid and 80-20 describes the unequal distribution of results in everything. Peter adds these considerations;

“It defines our surroundings so completely that we usually don't see it”.

He continues with; “but everyone needs to know exactly one thing that even venture capitalists struggle to understand: we don't live in a normal world; we live under power law.”

In this way many other facets of Startup founding are discussed practically.

In the end I came away with the following thought pattern;

A potential successful startup founder is someone who is a Definite Optimist with a long term perspective, prepared to take risks. Who has a mind open enough to identify factual or human secrets that need illumination. Who is prepared to do the hard work necessary to acquire the factual knowledge needed to explore this secret and find a way to change this mystery into a solution. Who is capable of funding this idea or selling it to Venture Funders to acquire funding. Who is prepared to expend the effort to develop the idea into a useful practical end product that solves something significant for a new market sector. AND; Who then has the flexibility to turn around from dreaming, research and creativity. To then display the tenacity to knuckle down to make this idea work in practice, prepared to live through the low personal income initial loss making era, building the practical business.

Thanks – A stimulating read, well worth the time and money – even for retired me!

6 people found this helpful

Raymond Klompsma

awesome business book

Reviewed in the Netherlands on 31 January 2015

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Really loved the book because it gives a different view on lots of thing entrepreneurs deal with. I encourage everyone who wants to create meaningful companies which make a difference in people's life to read this book.

2 people found this helpful

Rajesh Shanbhag

Challenge your thinking on start-up businesses

Reviewed in Australia on 18 July 2015

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Are you planning to start a restaurant serving Indian or British food in downtown Palo Alto (or anywhere for that matter)? Do you think you have a unique advantage over your competitors that will enable you to survive the competition? Think again, says Peter Thiel, in his book “Zero to One”. “If you lose sight of competitive reality…. your business is unlikely to survive.” Peter dispels the notion that competition in undifferentiated commodity business is good for your business. Rather, he favors “creative monopoly” despite the notoriety the word “monopoly” has gained over the years.

The preamble of the book states “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”, but for any founder or investor to achieve exponential growth, he states “Every new creation goes from 0 to 1. This book is about how to get there.” Peter Thiel has reinforced this message throughout the book and supported it with good examples.

He strongly argues that starting up an undifferentiated commodity business will wipe away profits and leave the start-up struggling for existence. He argues in favour of “creative monopoly”; a monopoly that encourages creativity in developing new products such that the society as a whole will benefit from such monopoly. These monopolies invest their monopoly profits in long-term projects and research; competitive companies cannot invest long-term because they spend more time struggling to earn and keep their existing profits. He thinks we need more creative monopolies to power the world. Such messages seem to fly in the face of established economic theory; but the presentation of the content makes a compelling read.

There are intelligent nuggets all over the book that are very inspirational and useful. He ends the book with a key thought “We cannot take for granted that the future will be better, and that means we need to work to create it today.”

The book is written in easy, lucid style in layman’s language. The book captivates the imagination; I read it twice in succession to imbibe the philosophy presented by the book. The book gives an insight into why some start-ups are more successful than others. That makes this book more relevant to today’s world than ever before. If you are a start-up or are planning one, you must read this book. For the rest of us, it makes a very absorbing read nevertheless.

6 people found this helpful

Ed Cleaves

Insights into Innovation and Asymmetric Opportunities

Reviewed in the United States on 21 April 2024

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I found the message of this book was thought provoking and somewhat controversial. The idea that monopolies provide more innovation than competition was difficult to accept. The advice was conceptual in nature, so the benefits of reading this book are probably indirect for me. I am unlikely to be an entrepreneur, but I was interested in gaining more insight into investments, with asymmetric growth potential. I revisited some recurring lessons in relation to innovation like the notion of anti-fragility - that some technologies benefit from being attacked. I was also reminded of the idea that network adoption creates more value for existing and new network participants.

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