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

by Peter Thiel

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.

Jeff Bezos says this often - to really create something new and innovate, copying others doesn't typically work. What works is Customer Obsession - obsessively solving problems people have. Goodreads was born this way, as were all the companies he lists in this annotation.