Ron’s Reviews > Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future > Status Update

Dropping this book like a baby on the Dursleys' doorstep. This guy has no coherent message, he frequently goes off on tangents that add nothing to the book, and he plays fast and loose with facts as the earlier AT&T example illustrates.

Also, apparently monopolies are engines for innovation because
1. AT&T used to be a monopoly and rate were high
2. ???
3. Now you can get cheap cell phone service.

Gosh, I wonder what could have happened between AT&T and the US government in 1982 that could explain this?

Okay book, you're now on notice. I'll give you 18 more pages to impress me - that's the end of chapter 4 - or I'm dropping you.

"'Perfect competition' is considered both the ideal and the default state in Economics 101" - Default, perhaps, but nobody said it's ideal. It's an extreme where there is zero product differentiation.

"Google is a good example of a company that went from 0 to 1" - wait, I though "0 to 1" meant inventing something new, whereas Google made its name by improving something that already existed.

Initial impression: what a load of tripe. The first two chapters are full of obvious observations made to sound bold and contrarian. Maybe things are different in the startup world, but every business that I've worked for and most of the clients I've worked with put a high emphasis on strategy and innovation.