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Zero to One, by Peter Thiel with Blake Masters
- muhuk 12y agoSee also: http://blakemasters.com/peter-thiels-cs183-startup http://blakemasters.com/peter-thiels-cs183-startup (notes from Peter Thiel’s CS183)
- pbreit 12y agoI'm wondering if this book is mostly a massaging of those note? It would still be a good read and nice to have but not entirely new.
- davidw 12y agoAdded to my wishlist. I'll wait for the reviews to come out. I like books, but so many business books have little actionable advice.
- dkyc 12y agoI would suggest he finishes his other book, "The Blueprint", first, since it is "pre-ordered" on Amazon for two years now... Talk about a slow launch.
- koonsolo 12y ago"ZERO TO ONE is about how to build companies that create new things.", but then as an example uses: "The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine." Maybe my history is not that good, but as far as I know Bill gates didn't build the first operating system, and when he bought 86-DOS, its success was mainly thanks to IBM. Same for Google, it wasn't the first search engine, it just improved on an existing concept.
- VMG 12y agoYour history is fine, but you should maybe work on your ability to distinguish between things that are "true" and "true, but irrelevant in this context"
- collint 12y agoIrrelevant how? Is it irrelevant that the examples fail to back up the assertion because Peter Thiel is the one making it? The 'big idea' expressed in this blurb is that it's 'easier to copy a model than to make something new.' And the supporting arguments show off the opposite case just to associate the book with becoming the next industry defining billionaire. Whoever wrote this blurb is either not thinking clearly, or is banking on readers to not think clearly. There are much better example cases for that argument, but they aren't as flashy.
- rjtavares 12y agoThe point is that the first mature dominant players in those markets were Microsoft and Google. That's not to say that the dominant player can't be challenged, it's just that the next 100 billion dollar company will start in a new market with no mature dominant player (e.g. Facebook on social networks).
- sergiosgc 12y agoAltavista was dominant when Google entered the fray. MySpace was dominant when FB took off. Whenever there is space for innovation and the incumbent does not react, a new player appears. Facebook is my next to be toppled over bet. There is a huge space for innovation and FB is not nimble and quick to react nor it is particularly innovative on its own. Acquisitions and the social network barrier to entry protect FB, but they don't hold forever.
- swombat 12y agoPeter Thiel's writings are often thought-provoking and insightful. They frequently think several steps deeper than the usual blog posts that we read on the topics... The CS183 notes bear that out. I've pre-ordered the book. Looking forward to it.
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- loup-vaillant 12y ago> Progress comes from monopoly, not competition. Okay, that was a surprise. I get the idea that one should work on new things, that merely trying to out-compete is counter-productive (competition is a zero-sum game after all). On the other hand, some benefits may only come when there's enough players that compete with each other. Take Virtual Reality, for instance. There's the Occulus Rift, Now Sony is working on it, there was valve… at one point, there will be enough player to make a market for low-latency, low-persistence, high-frequency, ridiculous-resolution flat panels. The smartphone industry pushed in that direction of course, but the limit of what's useful for this industry is clearly not enough for VR. Anyway, with this new market, VR will improve as a whole. Without the competition that is currently forming, I think those miraculous flat panels wouldn't come out as fast as they will. That said, those folks are still working on something new… --- Now that I think of it, maybe he was talking about maximizing one's marginal impact? Like, let the Occulus people work on their Rift alone, and try and work on something different. Even if that slows the VR revolution down, we may now have two revolutions. Hmm…
- seats 12y agoSeems like an odd theory on the heels of three counter examples. Bill Gates didn't create the first OS, Larry and Sergey didn't create the search engine, and Mark Zuckerberg didn't build the first social network.
- nomailing 12y agoexactly. given that, if you want to be the next Bill Gates or Larry & Sergey or Mark Zuckerberg then you should focus on spotting some new but already existing invention and crate a competitor that is just slightly better then the original.
- enraged_camel 12y agoYes, but most people don't know that. They started using computers on Windows, their first social network account was on Facebook, and their first Internet search was performed on Google. Therefore, even if the examples are not technically accurate, they are still extremely effective at getting Thiel's point across.
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- prof_hobart 12y ago>And the next Mark Zuckerberg won’t create a social network. Unless they are creating Twitter. And an article written before Facebook started would probably have said "The next Tom Anderson won't create a social network" Yes, every successful business will need to find what their particular unique niche is, and it certainly helps to be the first major player in a whole new area, but the reality is that at this macro level "Every moment in business" doesn't happen "only once". Most markets have plenty of space for multiple innovators making relatively minor tweaks to existing industries. For instance, you could easily present Steve Jobs being "the next Bill Gates", and he certainly did well out of a company creating OSs (and the hardware to run them on, but at least with Macs, and potentially with iPhones/iPads, the OS was almost certainly the more important part).
- Haul4ss 12y agoI think his point is that the next hugely successful billionaire will not be creating a competitor to something that is already hugely successful today. That's not to say you can't make a comfortable living building a better mousetrap. It just means you won't be Gates or Zuckerberg. Of course, you could easily make the argument that Gates (for example) merely built a better mousetrap. It's not like Microsoft invented the operating system. Or the personal computer. Or word processing. Microsoft, through strategy, lots of hard work, and a little luck, happened to be doing just the right thing at just the right time.
- lrm242 12y agoWait, you mean like Elon Musk? The guy is not only competing against hugely successful incumbents, but he's doing it in parallel in two markets! Somewhat ironic given Musk and Thiel are cut from the same cloth. Thiel's book might be a fun read. Take from it what you want, but it certainly isn't gospel.
- adventured 12y agoOr Bezos in retailing. First he beat Barnes & Noble etc, then he beat Walmart and Target (and everyone else). All from a guy that hadn't spent a minute in retail previously. Both Bezos and Musk took advantage of an exception to what Thiel is talking about: inflection points in technology sometimes provide massive competitive openings that are better viewed as blue ocean because they're so different from the establishment.
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- netcan 12y agoI don't think that "there can be only one" Bill Gates for any given category. I don't even think he's saying that there won't be any new OS or Social Network billionaires. I think he's drawing new types of businesses making new kinds of products for a new market vs businesses "competing in the __ space. A good litmus test might be the words that were used early on to describe the company/product. Twitter used to be "micro-blogging" or "like SMS but everyone can see it". MSFT may have had some early users who switched to DOS from Apple II Unix but most learned the words Operating System & DOS in the same instant. Investor's hadn't invested in an operating system company before. etc.
- jedione 12y agoZuck creates a social network when we had so many social networks- but its almost like he's saying going after a 100% blue ocean... ?
- xsace 12y agoLike if Microsoft was the first OS. Like if Google was the first Search Engine. Like if Facebook was the first Social Network. ...
- ironchef 12y agoExactly...and then those are interesting in _how_ they became the dominant player. Did they offer something the predecessor didn't, etc. Why MS succeeded can be argued around various points re: digital (re: CP/M), the boom of compatibility issues with the 808x machines (back in the DOS days and the proliferation of white box machines (aka IBM compatibles)), and the failure of OS/2 (I'm sure it's more complex than this, but.... Google succeeded as it was (imo) largely faster and more complete than the akebono preliminary as well as the adoption/evolution of the goto.com advertising paradigm. As to how facebook beat out myspace? I haven't heard convincing arguments that are definitive; however, they appear to have placed more of a focus on social aspects than myspace did (and they were less "geocities-like").
- rubinelli 12y agoThis blurb makes it sound like a repackaged Blue Ocean Strategy. Don't try to fight entrenched players in mature markets? This doesn't sound novel at all.
- girvo 12y agoCan you not pre-order Kindle books, or am I missing something?
- return0 12y agoSome of his ideas are elaborated in his public speaking, and the book sounds to be very interesting. I just hope he sticks to the release date and it doesn't get canceled like the previous one.
- bgmasters 12y agoI can confirm the book will be released on Sept. 16 :)
- chasing 12y ago> Progress comes from monopoly, not competition. > ... competition destroys profits for individuals, companies, and society as a whole. Profits != progress.
- yp_all 12y ago"... competition destroys profits for ... society as a whole." What is meant by "profits"? "Progress comes from monopoly..." What is meant by "progress"? Does the Antitrust Division at the DOJ do Book Reviews? I would enjoy reading their review of this one.
- rattray 12y agoI think a number of people here may be misinterpreting what Thiel means by "monopoly". Here is the likely backbone of that chapter[0]. I personally believe each company should do one thing, and do that one thing better than anyone else in the world possibly could. Companies should therefore be constantly perfecting that one thing to the degree that no competitor could possibly catch up. I may be wrong, but I hope that's the kind of monopoly Thiel is talking about. [0] http://blakemasters.com/post/21169325300/peter-thiels-cs183-startup-class-4-notes-essay http://blakemasters.com/post/21169325300/peter-thiels-cs183-...
- rayiner 12y agoI don't think that's really what that essay is about. Arguably, the point is the opposite of that. Read the part about Thiel interviewing for and not getting a Supreme Court clerkship. That process involves out-competing people: the pool of applicants looking to get into Stanford Law, the pool of classmates looking to get a circuit clerkship, the pool of circuit clerks looking to get a Supreme Court clerkship. Out of the 100,000 people who apply to law schools each year, 36 will get a Supreme Court clerkship 4-5 years later. Being in that 36 just requires doing the same thing everyone else is doing, but doing it better than the other 99,964 people. The moral of the story is that Thiel became incredibly successful by doing something nobody else was doing. If 100,000 people were all working for 4-5 years trying to create PayPal, maybe Thiel's version wouldn't have been the best. But that doesn't matter, because those people were off applying to law school. That's what Thiel seems to mean by "monopoly." Go find an area where you can make money, where there aren't 100,000 people trying to do the same thing you're doing.
- hershel 12y agoDo you know of many such companies started in the recent decade or two ? that achieved near monopoly state , without unfairly crushing competitors, without depending on network effects(which naturally favor one winner), and without unfairly using regulation ? or without so greatly benefiting from an initial advantage , to the point that even if they stopped seriously competing , no one could harm them ? Probably not, maybe a few. Why ? because the economy has became a network economy, where almost all industries benefit greatly from network effects. And network effects are unfair by their nature: they give such a huge advantage to the to the leader , even if he doesn't constantly improve. But why we see so much disruption you ask? well ,disruption also works on monopolies, by making it unprofitable for them to compete. And of course there are always new niches and people's preferences change so that hurt monopolies too.
- relaxatorium 12y ago"Progress comes from monopoly, not competition." Seems rich coming from the guy who founded Paypal, which was widely loathed and seen as pretty stagnant in the payments space after it achieved dominance over that market.
- elwell 12y agoA perfect example of a site that has indication of further content below the fold.
- saraid216 12y agoSo, anyone want to reconcile this with his version of libertarianism?
- feifan 12y agoEveryone in the comments here are getting caught up in the examples of Gates, Zuck, etc. But the vast majority of people who are even interested in creating something new are creating an app that riffs off an existing concept and are looking for a (quick) exit. I see this book as an evolution of The Blueprint and the Founders Fund manifesto, where Thiel is calling on people to stop squandering creative energy and build something truly great.
- npsimons 12y agoEveryone in the comments here are getting caught up in the examples Maybe that's because the examples appear to contradict the thesis of the book - that's not exactly a ringing endorsement. I see this book as an evolution of The Blueprint and the Founders Fund manifesto, where Thiel is calling on people to stop squandering creative energy and build something truly great. Perhaps people are pushed to "quick exits" (and quick bucks) because that's what's emphasized today? Maybe if people didn't have to worry about where their next paycheck was coming from, they'd have more time to "build something truly great." But no, let's not question the wisdom that monopolies are the only way innovation occurs, ignoring the plenty of counterexamples (Internet Explorer, anyone?).
- sferoze 12y agoI have recently been reading blake masters notes on the class and I find them extremely valuable. They are written so well I feel like I am reading a transcript of the real lecture. It feels like I am getting the source material even though they are a students notes. I bet the book will be even better since it is revised by Peter himself. I can't wait to read it as well.