Resenhas - Zero to One

Gui 12/02/2022

Zero to One
Peter Thiel, um dos fundadores da PayPal, comenta sobre o mundo das startups de uma maneira muito original. Bom livro

Allan 19/05/2016

Building the future from thin air – inspirational reading on innovation and on how to build a monopoly

As the book’s title says “notes on startups, or how to build the future”, this book was based on Peter Thiel class notes from a lecture in Stanford University. But who is Peter Thiel and what makes him a good reference to talk about entrepreneurship?
Peter Thiel is a self-made billionaire who co-founded PayPal during the 90’s with five other entrepreneurs. The company was later bought by Ebay for U$1.5 billion. Nowadays Thiel is the founder and investors in companies such as Thiel Capital, Founders Fund, Thiel Foundation, Facebook, SpaceX, and Polantir. Other founders have launched companies such as YouTube, Tesla, and many others technology companies that are changing the world we live.
The book presents a framework that can be used as a sanity check for new startups and presents the challenges that an entrepreneur may face to create value. The positive aspect is that Thiel’s arguments are backed by plenty of examples that goes from Thomas Edison to Elon Musk, Tesla and SpaceX mogul of our days.
To illustrate the approach and style you may find reading this book, follow some passages that I found interesting while reading the book:
“The lesson for entrepreneurs is clear: if you want to create and capture lasting value, don’t build an undifferentiated commodity business”
“Non-monopolists exaggerate their distinction by defining their market as the intersection of various smaller markets”
“Monopolists can afford to think about things other than making money”
“History of progress is a history of better monopoly businesses replacing incumbents… Monopolies can keep innovating because profits enable them to make the long-term plans and to finance the ambitious research projects that firms locked in competition can’t dream of.”
“Monopoly is the condition of every successful business… all happy companies are different: each one earns a monopoly by solving a unique problem. All failed companies are the same: they failed to escape competition.”
“Creative monopoly means new products that benefit everybody and sustainable profits for the creator. Competition means no profit for anybody, no meaningful differentiation, and a struggle for survival.”
“War is a costly business… if you can’t beat a rival, it may be better to merge… avoid competition as much as possible.”
“As a good rule of thumb, proprietary technology must be at least 10 times better than its closest substitute in some important dimension to lead to a real monopolistic advantage.” – 10x is the same concept adopted by Google to evaluate projects that should be considered. –“… the clarest way to make a 10x improvement is to invent something completely new.”
“Successful network businesses rarely get started by MBA types: the initial market are so small that they often don’t even appear to be business opportunities at all… Start Small and Monopolize… moving first is a tactic not a goal.”
“Creating a strong brand is a powerful way to claim a monopoly, service businesses especially are difficult to make monopolies.”
“Equity is a powerful tool precisely because of these limitations. Anyone who prefers owning a part of your company to being paid in cash reveals a preference for the long term and commitment to increasing your company’s value in the future. Equity can’t create perfect incentives, but it’s the best way for a founder to keep everyone in the company broadly aligned”

nenos 25/06/2023

Concrete visions beyond short formalities is the key.
Don’t we all want to look at the future and feel a little happy about it? What happened to the esteemed year 2000? Are we today overrating the power of chance and underrating the importance of planning? Think about it… few decades ago, the biggest structures were built, and fast. The Empire State took 2 years to be built, the Golden gate 4 years, Project Manhattan took 4 years and the Apollo program put 12 men on the moon with a 4KB RAM computer… somehow, we never looked back, and that might be concerning.
Mr. Thiel co-founded Paypal, one of the biggest online payment platforms and also one of the few which rode out from dot-com mania managing to thrive at his business. Throughout his journey, he gives great insights into the world he lived in, from the tech early stages to one of the biggest revolutions… reasoning by shumanity’s biggest problems, a genuine idea which took us from 0 to 1.
He then proceeds by asserting what do we have to keep in mind to create something new. For starters, to think for yourself requires the greatest effort which is knowledge. Then, there are few existing paths to think about: The increase value of something where there was nothing before is infinite and radically improving an existing solution, like Paypal did, competition is to be avoided.
Entrepreneurship also comes accompanied by the Shakesperean drama: “Honor’s at stake, exposing what’s mortal and unsure”. Amid all the human drama, people tend to lose sight of what matters and focus on their rivals instead. Roaming the business atmosphere, it may appear like Dante’s circles of hell: Financial bubbles, giant monopolies, undifferentiated commodity business, internal conflicts, indefinite pessimists, disruptors, venture capitalists, salesman, advertising lions... It’s hard to blame people for dancing when the music is playing.
The alarming casualness is obvious and simple for bullshitters: At some price point which has a durability horizon, buyers want to talk to the CEO, not the VP of Sales. Pursuing single-mindedly activities can be a very lonely path, still, our tendency is to explain success as the product of chance… Mr. Roald Amudsen, the first explorer to reach the South Pole has the final word in this review: “Victory awaits him who has everything in order—luck, people call it.”

Link to my highlights: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j5dUQYfC1Wxx6WbPdhuvuuDe8P6a_8T7/view?usp=share_link

Tiago 05/01/2024

Great business book
Business books are known by being "fluff friendly" and by having few useful content.

Zero to One is the opposite. It is a short book (~200 pages) based on the entrepreneurship course that Peter Thiel taught some years ago at Stanford and goes straight to the point. Thiel starts with his famous interview question: “What important truth do very few people agree with you on?” and the book can be seen as his answer to this question, specially his views on globalization, monopolies, and the lean startup trend.

Along the book, Thiel shares his opinion on what factors make a company successful. He talks about engineering, team, distribution, among other aspects. And each aspect is peppered with examples from companies that Thiel founded or invested on.

He states that successful startups should have answers for seven fundamental questions:

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?

A very good read that I recommend to people that are thinking of starting a company and also to people interested in the startup business landscape.