(Extracted from Zero to One by Peter Thiel) Unlike corporate giants, early-stage startups are small enough that founders usually have both ownership and possession. Most conflicts in a startup erupt between...
(Excerpt from Zero to One by Peter Thiel) There are two kinds of secrets: secrets of nature and secrets about people. Natural secrets exist all around us; to find them, one must study some undiscovered aspect of the...
(Excerpt from Zero to One by Peter Thiel) The power law is not just important to investors; rather, it’s important to everybody because everybody is an investor. An entrepreneur makes a major investment just by...
(Excerpt from Zero to One by Peter Thiel) Our results at Founders Fund illustrate this skewed pattern: Facebook, the best investment in our 2005 fund, returned more than all the others combined. Palantir, the...
(Excerpt from Zero to One by Peter Thiel) The greatest thing Jobs designed was his business. Apple imagined and executed definite multi-year plans to create new products and distribute them effectively. Forget...
(Excerpt from Zero to One by Peter Thiel) Even in engineering-driven Silicon Valley, the buzzwords of the moment call for building a “lean startup” that can “adapt” and “evolve” to an ever-changing...
(Excerpt from Zero to One by Peter Thiel) While a definitely optimistic future would need engineers to design underwater cities and settlements in space, an indefinitely optimistic future calls for more bankers and...
(Excerpt from Zero to One by Peter Thiel) Instead of working for years to build a new product, indefinite optimists rearrange already-invented ones. Bankers make money by rearranging the capital structures of already...
(Excerpt from Zero to One by Peter Thiel) A definite pessimist believes the future can be known, but since it will be bleak, he must prepare for it. Perhaps surprisingly, China is probably the most definitely...
(Extracted from Zero to One by Peter Thiel) You’ve probably heard about “first mover advantage”: if you’re the first entrant into a market, you can capture significant market share while competitors...
