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Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

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If you want to build a better future, you must believe in secrets.

The great secret of our time is that there are still uncharted frontiers to explore and new inventions to create. In Zero to One, legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create those new things.

Thiel begins with the contrarian premise that we live in an age of technological stagnation, even if we’re too distracted by shiny mobile devices to notice. Information technology has improved rapidly, but there is no reason why progress should be limited to computers or Silicon Valley. Progress can be achieved in any industry or area of business. It comes from the most important skill that every leader must master: learning to think for yourself.

Doing what someone else already knows how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But when you do something new, you go from 0 to 1. 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 ruthlessly in today’s marketplace. They will escape competition altogether, because their businesses will be unique.

Zero to One presents at once an optimistic view of the future of progress in America and a new way of thinking about innovation: it starts by learning to ask the questions that lead you to find value in unexpected places.

From the Hardcover edition.

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3 thoughts on “Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

  1. How to imagine what has never before existed, create it then grow it Zero to one is a tricky kind of how to book. It’s aim is to help you think about what has never been thought before. To create something that has never before existed. To go from zero to one. Then, with that one, take it to a very great many.There are many examples, like google before search, or paypal. The problem is stark for our world. If all the people of the world become rich like those in the west, as they ought to and are doing, then our world is not sustainable. We…

  2. Easily Best Startup Book of the Year If a billionaire venture capitalist walked up to you–and his startup cred’s included being the co-founder of PayPal and Palantir–and he said, “Hey, kid. Let’s grab lunch and I’ll tell you everything I know about creating the next breakthrough company.”You’d go right?Well Zero to One by Peter Thiel gives you this chance.As a serial entrepreneur and angel myself, I’m no newbie to the startup game, so I was shocked by…

  3. Practical, Smart, and Engaging Zero to One is a refreshing intellectual deep dive into the motives behind entrepreneurship.It’s full of unique, practical insights, and discusses success in terms of human nature and culture. Along with business strategy, Thiel outlines how successful innovation shapes society and shares an intriguing vision.Bottom line: This book was worth my time and refined several core beliefs. It made me ask hard questions which, as an entrepreneur, I believe are critical if you…

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