Three thoughts on ‘Zero to One’

0. My contrarian dilemma

In “Zero to One”, Peter Thiel’s main message is that you should think for yourself — contrarian to conventional truisms.

Hence, when I found myself in the place of actually agreeing with almost all of his points, I somehow felt like I did not fully internalize his most important message — that of contrarian thinking… Let’s call that my “contrarian dilemma”.

Nevertheless, I still found three opportunities to add some nuance:

1. Find secrets nobody acts upon

The underlying issue of the contrarian dilemma is that secrets stop being secrets the moment they are exposed. Rational people will actually agree with contrarian truths that have been effectively articulated.

Hence, it is more important to find the contrarian truths that nobody acts upon than to find secrets nobody agrees with you on.

Elon Musk nailed the Secret Question with Tesla because nobody acted upon the contrarian truth that electric cars mainly are objects of fashion. Imagine, he had actually asked people: “Don’t you agree that Hollywood stars mainly drive their Priuses because it is seen as cool to save the environment?“ I bet, many people would have actually agreed with him.

Conclusion: Find secrets nobody acts upon.

2. Generalism creates intellectual monopolies

Furthermore, the point is made that power laws imply intense specialization as a career advice. However, this advice is not exhaustive as you can both reap the benefits of power laws by (a) being at the cutting-edge of an existing field or (b) pioneering an entirely new field.

To pioneer an entirely new field, i.e. to create an intellectual monopoly, a healthy form of generalism is required: the birth of Computational Biology demonstrates that new fields often arise at the intersection of two or more established fields.

However, the kind of deep generalism required to pioneer new fields is to be distinguished from the shallow let’s-assemble-a-portfolio-of-credentials generalism that is described in the book.

Deep generalism is based on intense interest in a multitude of fields. The common denominator of deep generalism and intense specialization, consequently, is intense interest.

Conclusion: To build a career, don’t amass a portfolio of credentials but pursue your interests intensely.

3. Why web startups are not a sign of stagnation

Finally, I disagree with the notion that the innovation we currently see in the world of bits was anyhow inferior to prior leaps in the world of atoms.

In fact, as we already had (far from perfect and far from science-fiction but) solid solutions in the fields of transportation, housing, food, healthcare (etc.), power laws actually drove us to focus our attention onto pushing the information frontier: IT was arguably the singular field yielding the biggest deltas in value creation. The opportunity cost of not working on web startups were immense, as you could create more value with less resources. Hence, all the smart people went into Computer Science.

Upcoming innovation in the world of atoms won’t be a sign of going back to the future but a logical next step: our advancements in information technology actually enable us to see biology as an information science and to install the internet of things. The next leap in the world of atoms will be based on present leaps in information technology.

Attention will shift back to the world of atoms, as startups working on fundamental problems will serve as a magnet for smart people. Working a UX design job at LinkedIn, Facebook or AirBnB will soon seem too conventional; so, why not take on the more exotic challenge at SpaceX or Vicarious (ok, that’s bits again)?

Building the first browser at Netscape or bringing real identities to the web with the early Facebook, however, had a ring to it which was far more transformational than going from cars (already a decent solution) to flying cars. (The bit version — going from cars to autonomous cars — actually seems to be the more transformational one.)

Conclusion: The singular attention to innovation in the world of bits is a product of power laws, not a sign of stagnation.