I hate this book and I suspect that the feeling is mutual.Zero to One is a bunch of thoughts about entrepreneurs and startups by Peter Thiel, co-founder of Pay Pal. The book doesn't have a central thesis or framework like many other business advice books. Rather, each chapter is more or less self contained set of thoughts about how someone starting a company should to go from "zero to one" (create something new where nothing like it existed before) instead of "one to two" (iterating on something...

This book had nothing insightful or unique to offer. I found myself nodding in common sense to many of the points. It reads like college notes (what it is based on) but I would've asked for my 3 credits back. Skip it!

This book fluctuates between brilliance and madness. When it focuses on the mechanics of start ups, it's great. When it focuses on Thiel's philosophies, it's a bit whacky. Thiel enjoys being a contrarian too much. Doing something new and valuable may require being a contrarian, but just being contrarian doesn't mean your ideas are new and valuable. Worth reading if you're interested in startups, but be prepared to skim and shake your head. Pros:* Great chapters on how to build a monopoly, approa...

"a great founder can bring out the best work from everybody at his company."Books on business development and entrepreneurship - the good ones - usually have one thing in common: they require slow, patient reading so that the reader will have sufficient amount for time to let the principles sunk in. But in Zero to One, things are different. One could read the entire thing very quickly in a few hours, while retaining most of the contents. "Monopoly is the condition of every successful business."B...

Lately Thiel has been in the news and one would expect, based on a cursory examination of his backstory and current infamy, a work of diabolical genius or at the very least one with a bit of an edge. That said, the most surprising part of the book is its extreme banality.

Having worked with Peter - and the PayPal mafia more generally - for almost 10 years now, I have a unique perspective on Zero to One. Many of the ideas contained within are familiar to me. The launching point for the book is Peter's stock interview question - a question he asked me 8 years ago.'What is something you think is true, but that most people disagree with you on?'My answer at the time (2006) was: 'There is a bubble in housing.' Of course, that was cheating, since I knew this was a pet

Starts well, becomes trite, ends delusional.

Even worse than the self-help section of the bookstore, you need to go into the entrepreneur part of the business section of the bookstore to find a copy of this book.Unless you are one of those Twitter jerkoffs who is tweeting about your startup or -- worse -- your insights on the latest VC trends, you will probably want to wear a disguise when procuring a copy of this book. But it's totally worth it.This book is a refinement, with new ideas added, of notes from a class (CS183: Startup) that Mr...

It starts with a simple and elegant thesis: a new idea is a singularity that changes the world. The best paths in business are new and untried. For this reason, there can be no definite road plan toward their creation. Every formula for innovation is new and unique. Buried within a book on business and startups is a deep thesis about the relationship between technology, society, and our historical moment. From the beginning, I assumed this was a book written by an MBA or computer scientist, but

I thoroughly enjoyed the book even if I have found myself in violent disagreement with many of its thoughts. The book opens up with these words."Every moment in business happens only once.The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won’t create a social network. 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 al...

Q:All Rhodes Scholars had a great future in their past. (c) So, 'stagnation or singularity'? Which one's it going to be?A sneak peek into the world as the PayPal & Palantir guy sees it.Q:...the seven questions that every business must answer:1. The Engineering QuestionCan you create breakthrough technology instead of incremental improvements?2. The Timing QuestionIs now the right time to start your particular business?3. The Monopoly QuestionAre you starting with a big share of a small market?4....

I kind of dismissed Peter Thiel as an idiot after his very public support of President Trump, but that was a mistake.The premise of Zero to One is enlightening. We always think of business in terms of cut-throat competition. But Thiel makes a very convincing argument that most successful businesses avoid competition whenever possible. The natural extension of that is one should only found a business with a clear path to monopoly. For me, at least, it kind of turned everything I thought I knew ab...

The first book since Antifragile that had me hooked beginning to end. The definite/ indefinite paradigm had me thinking long after the book was finished. Fantastic.Ch. 1 The challenge of the the futureThe first chapter is an introductory piece on the creation of new value (going from nothing to something) thus zero to one as opposed to logarithmic and or incremental changes one to n. - He argues that spreading old ways to create wealth around the world will only further globalize the world into

A fascinating book, great for investing and entrepreneurs. I like how he really focuses on contrarian thinking, and his mental models for it. But only giving it 4 stars because I wish he went deeper there, with more examples. But this quote is gold:"The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself." Jeff Bezos says this often - to really create something new and innovate, copying others doesn't typically work. What works is Customer Obsession - focusing obses...

I heard about this book when it came out and thought that there was no way I would read a book on startups. Not that I don't see great things coming out of some startups, but I am not the only one who has developed a fatigue of the many random startups founded by fellow Silicon Valley dwellers who are engineers, MBAs, or a little bit of both, and of the many other Valley dwellers who claim they want to do a startup without knowing what it will be about!After my dad bought a copy in Taipei I deci...

SingularityIn business, we don’t get the panacea methodology guaranteed to deliver a market-dominating business or monopoly, and the methodology for the next big thing, likely hasn’t been defined yet. We need to look at each business from multiple perspectives and I do believe Peter Thiel provides another unique perspective – not a replacement perspective but an additional one. The research shows that disruptive innovation typically comes from new start companies and they tend to dominate a new

I'm sorry. I don't know why all the rave. This book is full of pontification and cliche. And sometimes shameless ones. Not to mention the every now and then judgmental categorical commentaries. I had to return the audio book half way thru. Total lack of nutrition.

Peter Thiel's book is definitely worthwhile reading.He has some fantastic points about start-ups, working environments for new and small businesses and a strong level of conviction for his methodology and beliefs which is nice to read.That being said, he's self indulgent in parts of this book - perhaps his choice as a self-made billionaire (I don't know) - and more importantly he spends a lot of time focusing on all the great achievements of his inner circle. There is in fact life beyond silicon...

Beginnings are special. To shape the future, Zero To One is an exercise in questioning and revising established wisdom. And what we're all about is thinking about thinking.This surprised me because I was expecting more startup advice. Even though I disagreed with many of the book's points, I thoroughly enjoyed it. More fundamental stuff, far deeper theories. Secrets, after all, are the biggest competitive advantage.Grab your copy here: https://amzn.to/3s2Hye0

[Note: this review was written for an advance copy, so there may be minor differences between references made here and in the first edition.]Contrary to my own expectation, I quite enjoyed Peter Thiel's newest book. Though put off by some of Thiel's contrarian (and in some cases, delusionally bullish) opinions, after reading Blake Master's notes from Stanford's CS183, I was pretty excited for their latest collaboration. While the latter half of the book is chock full of startup advice, the first...