“The Single Book Elon Musk Can’t Stop Recommending”

This is mandatory reading for all entrepreneurs. Regardless of what you think of Thiel in the political arena, he makes some very compelling arguments on how to get started as a founder.

For business folks – read this at least yearly. Great, thought provoking ideas! A business classic with solid advice to consider.

worth it to read

Useful for entrepreneurs and investors. Great commentary and historical analysis on larger trends impacting innovation to practical and important advice for founders and investors in early stage companies.

Peter does a great job of breaking complex scenarios into basic facts. I makes his insights from big business apply to anyone. I must read before starting any new business to make sure your thoughts and basic motives are solid.

Zero to One describes some rules for those of us looking to either go into business or those of us already running a business. There were many takeaways from this easy-to-read page turner that were valuable. I think the biggest takeaway for me is that I always thought that in order to be in business, you needed your business to compete. Thiel argues that is asinine and that whenever you are in a business, your goal should be to monopolize and dominate so there isn’t any competition. The true businesses out there aren’t the businesses that play in those price wars, they are the businesses that can elevate their prices and don’t have to worry about pricing strategy because they offer something other can’t. Such is the case with Tesla, Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook.
I also found it refreshing when he described how startup CEOs are selected and how since his first start-up he would never hire someone with a three-piece suit because that didn’t fit the culture and personality of his start-up, instead you need to look no further than the bright-eyed bushy-tailed millennial that comes in with a graphic t, understands the market, the technology, and talks a good game.
In short, I wasn’t a fan of Peter Thiel before because of his position on a number of things–however, after reading this, I may have to take serious consideration into the things he says because he is highly intelligent, and extremely articulate. Not to mention, he has started more than one billionaire company and sits on the board for a number of others.
If you like business/start-ups, but you consider yourself a slow reader, you will crush this in two-days easy. I could not put this book down and read it on a straight 6-hour flight from Newark to LAX.

This was more than a self-congratulatory guide through how Peter Thiel became successful, like seemingly so many other books from successful people. This seems to take a very real and genuine look into how Peter Thiel views the world (obviously through his own words), the same worldview that allowed him to start and invest in very successful companies as well as make billions in the process.

I will admit that I had a few, though exceedingly limited, gripes with his point of view. His apparent disdain for things like globalization and incremental (rather than radical) improvement seem to unfairly discount how the value of adding more and more players to an increasingly better starting point can lead to the creation of even more of these singular start ups that can bring game changing innovation to reality. I also think his comments on how competition prohibits companies from enjoying economic profit, thus ultimately must be bad in the long-run, is based on what seems a faulty notion around the meaning of economic profit – it’s the ability to generate profitable returns that exceed their required risk-adjusted return (also known as ‘alpha’ in the financial markets space). That would mean there’s more than plenty of opportunities to profit in incremental improvements, but it is unlikely to do so in a way that exceeds the risk-adjusted return. Given the type of moonshot efforts he seems to support here, that would naturally seem to require these monopolistic margin / exponential growth characteristics he advocates.

Those minor gripes aside, I think he’s put together an amazing book on the principles and guidelines that are exceedingly valuable for creating large-scale, positive societal impacts and monetary value.

This book is great for those looking to understand how to pick winners in their investment choices. Time and and time again we hear about things like cash flow and quarterly profits but short sited companies are irrelevant companies in the long run.

Case and point, looking at Tesla you would likely open a short position any time before May of 2018 as many people have done. But after reading this book you would realize that the real factors to consider are things like monopoly of a niche market. Monopoly of niche companies expand to capture other markets until the company in question is of a large size. Tesla captured the electric vehicle market for the wealthy and the production of lithium Ion battery market. This coupled with it being a company that focuses on a mission beyond profits that allows for the extra human capital to be put into the company.

Zero to One speaks of leaps that represent great opportunities for investors. Another such company might be something like AirBNB which Peter Theil has stated he thinks might be one of those companies. Why would he say that? This book has the answers.

Summary:

Does the company have a major breakthrough?
Is this the right time to capitalize of of this breakthrough? (markets are ready, society is ready, resources are in place)
Will this company be a monopoly of the breakthrough markets?
Does the company have the right people?
Does the company have effective way to deliver product or service?
Secret? (Did you discover this great company before it has the spot light?)