Peter Thiel

Zero to One

Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

Zero to one

15 minute read    Audio Available

Start free Snapreads trial


Synopsis

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future is a 2014 book by venture capitalist, PayPal co-founder, and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel along with Blake Masters.

Who is this book for?

  • Readers who are interested in persuasive and leadership oriented books.
  • People who need to use persuasion to generate sales or inspire change.
  • Anyone interested to learn how to use why to get desired results.

Meet the author

Peter Andreas Thiel (born October 11, 1967) is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, philanthropist, political activist, and author.


Zero to One Summary

Every company that wants to stay competitive in the long run, must in some way at least attempt to make predictions about the future and prepare for it.

One of the most significant challenges faced by any company is how to make sure that they do not fall behind their competition. In a world where every market is incredibly competitive, the survival of a company very often depends on whether or not it can keep up with its competition and stay relevant in that market.

The problem of course is, how do they do that?

That is the question that every company tries to answer, and the problem is that the answer involves, at least in some way, predicting the future. For a company to make sure that it can be competitive and more importantly STAY competitive, it needs to be able to predict what the market is going to require in future so that they can be ready to respond when market requirements change.

It then is the “Challenge of the Future.” How do we predict what is going to happen before it happens?

The problem we face in this regard is that it is incredibly difficult for most people imagining things that do not exist and in most cases have never lived. What makes this problem even more difficult to solve is the fact that the factors determining what will be necessary for the future are not produced by the people trying to answer those needs.

In other words, this prediction requires someone who can not only imagine what the future is going to be but also how someone else is going to interpret that future regarding what they need to respond to it effectively. Any company that can somehow solve this problem and meets the challenge of the future will have a distinct and definite advantage over its competitors.

All truly successful companies are unique in some way. Find something that your company does better than anyone else and focus on it.

Something that too many people forget about successful companies is that all of them have some unique selling point. Every great company has something that they can do that no-one else can do.

Alternatively, there is something that they do so much better than anyone else that they have effectively become “the only game in town.” This distinction is something that not many people realize. It is not enough for a company to be good at something.

The great companies, the “Happy Companies” are the ones who have turned themselves into something unique. So what then is the lesson?

If you are willing to build a great company, make sure that it creates a value that no other company is producing. Being able to identify this unique value that your company can add is probably the most crucial aspect of building a truly successful company.

The importance of this cannot be overstated. Once you have achieved a position where you are the only producer of a specific commodity or product, you have not only guaranteed security in the present, but also long-term protection that is very difficult to break down.

So how does this compare to failed companies and why DO so many of them fail?

Very just, the companies that fail are the ones who are unable to escape from their competition. These companies too often find themselves in a market that is “saturated.”

In other words, there are too many companies offering the same service or product, and there is no reason for any consumer to choose one over the other. In this situation, one or sometimes two companies will inevitably rise above the rest by finding that one differentiating factor and the remaining companies will fail.

Be careful of falling into a cycle of competing with other companies. Instead of trying to beat them at what they’re doing, try to find something better.

An exciting aspect of the modern business arena is the one of competition. Most people will automatically tell you that competition is good for business and this is undoubtedly the case.

What is interesting however is the way in which competition is approached in the market. Rather than trying to make themselves better we too often see companies trying to bring their competitors down or even copy them in some way.

The problem with the system like this is that it is competition for the sake of competition rather than to improve the overall products and services. What is interesting about this system is that it can so often be self-destructive.

It happens because when we are too focused on our competition with a rival, we often miss that we might be competing on the wrong front. When two companies get into direct competition, usually because the two of them are at the top of their game, they can get so blinded by that competition that they completely miss the arrival of a third competitor.

That is what happened with Microsoft and Google, who were so preoccupied with competing against each other, that they lost the entry of Apple completely. Now Apple has a more significant market share than those two companies together.

Smartphones can best illustrate another aspect of this competition. Look at how similar smartphones are to each other, regardless of which companies they come from in first place.

These products are now so similar to each other that it requires a previously unheard of level of knowledge to tell them apart. It is what happens when competition becomes too fierce.

Instead of trying to do something “Better,” companies instead try to do the “Same thing” at a slightly higher quality. That leads to innovation stagnating to no small extent.

Sign up or Login for the full summary


“The best entrepreneurs know this: every great business is built around a secret that’s hidden from the outside. A great company is a conspiracy to change the world; when you share your secret, the recipient becomes a fellow conspirator.” 

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

What Is Snapreads?

With the Snapreads app, you get the key insights from the best nonfiction books in minutes, not hours or days. Our experts transform these books into quick, memorable, easy-to-understand insights you can read when you have the time or listen to them on the go.


Book Summaries by Category


What to Read Next? Contagious Summary