The Zero to One principle—detailed in the book published by the same title—posits that doing what someone else already knows how to do takes the world from 1 to n, thus adding more of something familiar. However when you do something new, you go from 0 to 1. [1][2] Author @Peter Thiel—billionaire entrepreneur, venture capitalist, philanthropist—continues:
The next @Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next @Larry Page or @Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. Tomorrow’s champions will not win by competing in today’s marketplace. They will escape competition altogether, because their businesses will be unique. [3]
@Mark Zuckerberg, says "[Zero to One] delivers completely new and refreshing ideas of how to create value in the world." While @Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape, said "Zero to One is the first book any working or aspiring entrepreneur must read—period." [1][4] The book opens with a question that Thiel often asks in interviews, "What important truth do very few people agree with you on?" Thiel continues, “[the question] sounds easy because it’s straightforward. Actually, it’s very hard to answer. It’s intellectually difficult because the knowledge that everyone is taught in school is by definition agreed upon. And it’s psychologically difficult because anyone trying to answer must say something she knows to be unpopular. Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply than genius.” This question is at the heart of the book. In this important but contrarian truth of yours lies the path that you should take—as it shows where your greatest opportunity might be. It is where you can push an idea not just laterally but vertically, making a leap forward from the status quo—going from zero to one.
References
- Zero to One, zerotoonebook.com
- Notes Essays—Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup—Stanford, Spring 2012, Blake Masters
- Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future, Peter Thiel & Blake Masters
- Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Book Review, valuewalk.com
Tags
- #book