Zero to One Quotes

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

“If everything worth doing has already been done, you may as well feign an allergy to achievement and become a barista.”
― Blake Masters, Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future

“doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you do it well.” That is completely false.”
― Blake Masters, Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future

“A business with a good definite plan will always be underrated in a world where people see the future as random.”
― Blake Masters, Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future

“leanness is a methodology, not a goal.”
― Blake Masters, Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future

“no seas disruptivo: evita la competencia todo lo posible.”
― Peter Thiel, De cero a uno: Cómo inventar el futuro

“No deberías saber lo que tu negocio hará en el futuro; la planificación es arrogante e inflexible.”
― Peter Thiel, De cero a uno: Cómo inventar el futuro

“Los teléfonos inteligentes que nos distraen de nuestro entorno también nos distraen del hecho de que nuestro entorno es extrañamente arcaico:”
― Peter Thiel, De cero a uno: Cómo inventar el futuro

“small groups of people bound together by a sense of mission have changed the world for the better. The easiest explanation for this is negative: it’s hard to develop new things in big organizations, and it’s even harder to do it by yourself.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“Haz progresos graduales Las grandes visiones inflaron la burbuja, de modo que no deberían consentirse. Cualquiera que afirme ser capaz de hacer algo grande es sospechoso, y cualquiera que quiera”
― Peter Thiel, De cero a uno: Cómo inventar el futuro

“What important truth do very few people agree with you on?—is difficult to answer directly. It may be easier to start with a preliminary: what does everybody agree on? “Madness is rare in individuals—but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule,” Nietzsche wrote (before he went mad). If you can identify a delusional popular belief, you can find what lies hidden behind it: the contrarian truth.”
― Blake Masters, Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future

“Every company starts in unique circumstances, and every company starts only once. Statistics doesn’t work when the sample size is one.”
― Blake Masters, Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future

“people then products then traffic then revenue.”
― Blake Masters, Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future

“(To properly value a business, you also have to discount those future cash flows to their present worth, since a given amount of money today is worth more than the same amount in the future.)”
― Blake Masters, Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future

“Humans don’t decide what to build by making choices from some cosmic catalog of options given in advance; instead, by creating new technologies, we rewrite the plan of the world. These are the kind of elementary truths we teach to second graders, but they are easy to forget in a world where so much of what we do is repeat what has been done before.”
― Blake Masters, Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future

“Today’s companies have an insatiable appetite for data, mistakenly believing that more data always creates more value. But big data is usually dumb data. Computers can find patterns that elude humans, but they don’t know how to compare patterns from different sources or how to interpret complex behaviors. Actionable insights can only come from a human analyst (or the kind of generalized artificial intelligence that exists only in science fiction).”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“Today, more than 97% of recruiters use LinkedIn and its powerful search and filtering functionality to source job candidates, and the network also creates value for the hundreds of millions of professionals who use it to manage their personal brands. If LinkedIn had tried to simply replace recruiters with technology, they wouldn’t have a business today.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“A product is viral if its core functionality encourages users to invite their friends to become users”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“A complex sales approach would have made Box a forgotten startup failure; instead, personal sales made it a multibillion-dollar business.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“about your mission and answers about your team. You’ll attract the employees you need if you can explain why your mission is compelling: not why it’s important in general, but why you’re doing something important that no one else is going to get done. That’s the only thing that can make its importance unique.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“The essential first step is to think for yourself.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“humans are distinguished from other species by our ability to work miracles.”
― Blake Masters, Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future

“You should focus relentlessly on something you’re good at doing, but before that you must think hard about whether it will be valuable in the future. For”
― Blake Masters, Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future

“No technology company can be built on branding alone.”
― Blake Masters, Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future

“A good startup should have the potential for great scale built into its first design.”
― Blake Masters, Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future

“This is why successful network businesses rarely get started by MBA types: the initial markets are so small that they often don’t even appear to be business opportunities at all.”
― Blake Masters, Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future

“Most of a tech company’s value will come at least 10 to 15 years in the future.”
― Blake Masters, Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future

“Futurists can seem like they hope the answer is yes. Luddites are so worried about being replaced that they would rather we stop building new technology altogether. Neither side questions the premise that better computers will necessarily replace human workers. But that premise is wrong: computers are complements for humans, not substitutes. The most valuable businesses of coming decades will be built by entrepreneurs who seek to empower people rather than try to make them obsolete.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“At PayPal, our initial user base was 24 people, all of whom worked at PayPal. Acquiring customers through banner advertising proved too expensive. However, by directly paying people to sign up and then paying them more to refer friends, we achieved extraordinary growth. This strategy cost us $20 per customer, but it also led to 7% daily growth, which meant that our user base nearly doubled every 10 days.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“A product is viral if its core functionality encourages users to invite their friends to become users too. This is how Facebook and PayPal both grew quickly: every time someone shares with a friend or makes a payment, they naturally invite more and more people into the network. This isn’t just cheap—it’s fast, too.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future