Zero to One Quotes

“If you overachieve and end up learning something that’s not on the test, you won’t receive credit for it. But in exchange for doing exactly what’s asked of you (and for doing it just a bit better than your peers), you’ll get an A. This process extends all the way up through the tenure track, which is why academics usually chase large numbers of trivial publications instead of new frontiers.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future

“An entrepreneur cannot “diversify” herself: you cannot run dozens of companies at the same time and then hope that one of them works out well.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future

“Consider the trivial but revealing hallmarks of urban hipsterdom: faux vintage photography, the handlebar mustache, and vinyl record players all hark back to an earlier time when people were still optimistic about the future. If everything worth doing has already been done, you may as well feign an allergy to achievement and become a barista.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“good at doing, but before that you”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“The polar opposite business cliché warns that “the best product doesn’t always win.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“The engineer’s grail is a product great enough that “it sells itself.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“The perfect target market for a startup is a small group of particular people concentrated together and served by few or no competitors.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“Spreading old ways to create wealth around the world will result in devastation, not riches. In a world of scarce resources, globalization without new technology is unsustainable.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“Venture-backed companies create 11% of all private sector jobs. They generate annual revenues equivalent to an astounding 21% of GDP.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“Because globalization and technology are different modes of progress, it’s possible to have both, either, or neither at the same time. For example, 1815 to 1914 was a period of both rapid technological development and rapid globalization. Between the First World War and Kissinger’s trip to reopen relations with China in 1971, there was rapid technological development but not much globalization. Since 1971, we have seen rapid globalization along with limited technological development, mostly confined to IT.

This age of globalization has made it easy to imagine that the decades ahead will bring more convergence and more sameness. But I don’t think that’s true. [...] Most people think the future of the world will be defined by globalization, but the truth is that technology matters more. Without technological change, if China doubles its energy production over the next two decades, it will also double its air pollution. If every one of India’s hundreds of millions of households were to live the way Americans already do—using only today’s tools—the result would be environmentally catastrophic. In a world of scarce resources, globalization without new technology is unsustainable.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“At no point does anyone in the chain know what to do with money in the real economy. But in an indefinite world, people actually prefer unlimited optionality; money is more valuable than anything you could possibly do with it. Only in a definite future is money a means to an end, no the end itself-”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“Apple imagined and executed definite multi-year plans to create new products and distribute them effectively. Forget “minimum viable products”—ever”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future

“Still round the corner there may wait A new road or a secret gate, And though we pass them by today, Tomorrow we may come this way And take the hidden paths that run Towards the Moon or to the Sun.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“Bureaucratic hierarchies move slowly, and entrenched interests shy away from risk.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“Google makes so much money that it’s now worth three times more than every U.S. airline combined.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future

“the seven questions that every business must answer: 1. The Engineering Question Can you create breakthrough technology instead of incremental improvements? 2. The Timing Question Is now the right time to start your particular business? 3. The Monopoly Question Are you starting with a big share of a small market? 4. The People Question Do you have the right team? 5. The Distribution Question Do you have a way to not just create but deliver your product? 6. The Durability Question Will your market position be defensible 10 and 20 years into the future? 7. The Secret Question Have you identified a unique opportunity that others don’t see?”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future

“indefinite optimism seems inherently unsustainable: how can the future get better if no one plans for it?”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“Google’s motto—“Don’t be evil”—is in part a branding ploy, but it’s also characteristic of a kind of business that’s successful enough to take ethics seriously without jeopardizing its own existence.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“The first step to thinking clearly is to question what we think we know about the past.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“If you can identify a delusional popular belief, you can find what lies hidden behind it: the contrarian truth.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“in order to be happy, every individual needs to have goals whose attainment requires effort.

Kaczynski argued that modern people are depressed because all the world's hard problems have already been solved. What's left to do is either easy or impossible, and pursuing those tasks is deeply unsatisfying. What you can do, even a child can do; what you can't do, even Einstein couldn't have done.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“the most valuable companies in the future won’t ask what problems can be solved with computers alone. Instead, they’ll ask: how can computers help humans solve hard problems?”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“Creating value is not enough—you also need to capture some of the value you create.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“What valuable company is nobody building? This question is harder than it looks, because your company could create a lot of value without becoming very valuable itself. Creating value isn't enough—you also need to capture some of the value you create.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“the U.S. Treasury prints “In God We Trust” on the dollar; the ECB might as well print “Kick the Can Down the Road” on the euro.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“rap star joins elite group of hackers to catch the shark that killed his friend.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“ask yourself: how much of what you know about business is shaped by mistaken reactions to past mistakes? The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future

“The most obvious clue was sartorial: cleantech executives were running around wearing suits and ties. This was a huge red flag, because real technologists wear T-shirts and jeans. So we instituted a blanket rule: pass on any company whose founders dressed up for pitch meetings.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“Our task today is to find singular ways to create the new things that will make the future not just different, but better—to go from 0 to 1. The essential first step is to think for yourself. Only by seeing our world anew, as fresh and strange as it was to the ancients who saw it first, can we both re-create it and preserve it for the future.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

“Properly understood, technology is the one way for us to escape competition in a globalizing world. As computers become more and more powerful, they won’t be substitutes for humans: they’ll be complements.”
― Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future