Zero to One

Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

By: Peter Thiel, Blake Masters

Narrated by: Blake Masters

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “This book delivers completely new and refreshing ideas on how to create value in the world.”—Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta

“Peter Thiel has built multiple breakthrough companies, and Zero to One shows how.”—Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla

The great secret of our time is that there are still uncharted frontiers to explore and new inventions to create. In Zero to One, legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create those new things.

Thiel begins with the contrarian premise that we live in an age of technological stagnation, even if we’re too distracted by shiny mobile devices to notice. Information technology has improved rapidly, but there is no reason why progress should be limited to computers or Silicon Valley. Progress can be achieved in any industry or area of business. It comes from the most important skill that every leader must master: learning to think for yourself.

Doing what someone else already knows how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But when you do something new, you go from 0 to 1. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. Tomorrow’s champions will not win by competing ruthlessly in today’s marketplace. They will escape competition altogether, because their businesses will be unique.

Zero to One presents at once an optimistic view of the future of progress in America and a new way of thinking about innovation: it starts by learning to ask the questions that lead you to find value in unexpected places.

©2014 Peter Thiel (P)2014 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Crisply written, rational and practical, Zero to One should be read not just by aspiring entrepreneurs but by anyone seeking a thoughtful alternative to the current pervasive gloom about the prospects for the world.” – The Economist

"An extended polemic against stagnation, convention, and uninspired thinking. What Thiel is after is the revitalization of imagination and invention writ large…." – The New Republic

"Might be the best business book I've read...Barely 200 pages long and well lit by clear prose and pithy aphorisms, Thiel has written a perfectly tweetable treatise and a relentlessly thought-provoking handbook." – Derek Thompson, The Atlantic

The importance of contrarian thinking

This book is itself contrarian in comparison to all other startup books out there. It does an amazing job of forcing you to destroy the foundations upon which you've built so many of your assumptions in the startup world, thereby revealing the truth of how to build something valuable in a world of copy & paste entrepreneurship.

All the real, non-bullshit, subconscious lessons that many successful entrepreneurs have either intuitively known or learned the hard way are concisely stated in this book.

I think I'll likely listen to it a few more times in order to untrain all the other thinking that's been ingrained in my head.

Thoughtful

I appreciate the clear vision of the world that Peter Thiel presents. All of his examples and assumptions seem very thoughtful, and his personal involvement in the history of the events in Silicon Valley over the last two decades help an outsider get a real insider’s point of view.

If I have a complaint, it would be his seemingly over zealous opinion of some of his prior partner’s new ventures.

I hope his potential ubiquitous involvement with government security tools does not breed hubris.

Contains some real nuggets

There are quite a few interesting ideas in this book if you can get past the monotone reading of it. I just sped him up. He wasn't too bad, but I can see how he might bore others.

This is one of the more insightful pieces of startup writing that I've come across, perhaps only second to Paul Graham's essays. His critique of lean/agile methodologies and his ideas on competition vs monopoly are the key things that stood out.

I haven't quite digested all the ideas in this book, but I think it's profound enough to be worth a listen or two.

Fantastic, Thoughtful Insight

I loved this book. If you are thinking of starting a business read this book

Great book

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

It is always a useful experience to read the thoughts of a successful entrepreneur and mentor. According to the book notes, this work is a compilation of notes from a lecture series.
This is a must-read, filled with so many great insights and takeaways, and it is definitely becoming part of my permanent bookshelf!

Awesome content, boring narrator

The ideas and concepts in this book are fantastic. I will have to listen to this again and again. My only complaint is the presentation. The narrator is monotone and boring to listen to. I often had to rewind to listen again and again because it wasn't easy paying attention. At times I felt like I was listening to a 9th graders midterm presentation on a subject they didn't fully understand.

Eye openning

Lots of great ideas covered in the book. My biggest takeaway is to build a monopoly and avoiding competition. Highly recommend to anyone thinking of starting a business. This is a must read.

First audiobook in Audible

Love this book and the ideas behind zero to one! Great to know that you can manipulate luck.

A must read for every budding entrepreneur

This book has some really incredible insight into large companies and what makes them different from everyone else. It really lets you in on what you need to do to be successful in business and stand out from the rest.

I’ve met a number of entrepreneurs who have failed in business due to violating some of the basic principles of this book. I would highly recommend it to anybody that is self employed or creating a new business. It may just save you from failure!

More than an experience sharing

Until chapter 4, i was not very comfortable with the narrator but when i finished the book i ve felt like i can (should) listen it again.