Summary of “0 to 1” for Busy Entrepreneurs
You should still read the full book, it is excellent. But if you are too busy, I offer the main insights that helped me the most
Long story short, absolutely I loved this book. It was short and sweet, down to the point, no sugar coating, no political correctness, yet full of wisdom. To do my part, I wrote this article to bring to attention a couple of excellent points that vividly resonated with me that I think might help other young and tech-oriented people on their entrepreneurial journeys.
1. You are not a Lottery Ticket
“Outliers” by Malcom Gladwell is one of my favourite books of all time (review coming soon, haha). Here, however, Peter Thiel completely demolishes it.
Why? When it comes to the analysis of successful people, Malcom shifts the attention a bit too much from ingenuity and industriousness to personal circumstances, fortunes and unfair advantages. I have to say, I kind of liked that.
Outliers gave comfort to hyper-competitive ego and its reflexive impulsive to compare myself to other high performer. They conveniently explained away why I am not a billionaire yet like Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates. They were born into ideal initial conditions. Yes, they were smart and worked hard, but they were also very lucky, maybe a little too much… It’s not your fault Tommy.
Jokes aside, despite there being some truth to what Malcom is trying to say, Peter Thiel argues that this is not a productive mindset for an entrepreneur. There might be a lot of luck involved, but you should focus on what is in your control and believing that it will be enough. Being slightly delusional is not a bad thing if you want to launch a start-up.
You cannot control everything, but you can control yourself and your company. Even though it is not absolute omnipotence, it is still much better than sheer randomness. Remember, you are not a lottery ticket.
2. Optimistic America vs Pessimistic Europe
This will be relevant to all you Europeans who lived in the US at some point of your life or you Americans who lived in Europe. Peter Thiel’s thesis is that Americans are generally optimistic about their future and they have no idea why. Europeans, on the other hand, more or less agree that it will not get any better.
There are some historical reasons for this, of course, which are covered in some detail in the book, but I liked this chapter specifically because it perfectly matched my personal experiences moving from Europe (Luxembourg) to America (Seattle).
Seattle is humming, I get up every morning feeling like big things are happening at my door step and that I am an important part of that. I work harder here yet I feel less tired.
It is so interesting. At least in Seattle, most people are super driven, working a demanding day job and juggling 5 side hustles on top of that. Every stupid idea that I mention to my American friends evokes a “OMG, that is brilliant! We should totally do that!” reaction, and we often end up doing it.
Compare that to Europe, where I observed people by-en-large suffer through their 9–5s and then obsess about their next vacation plans. Do not get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong about either of the 2 mindsets. But there is no doubt a clear favourite for fostering a culture of innovation and progress.
In a way, Peter Thiel provided me with a clever vocabulary for explaining my own personal Euro-American evolution. For the curios entrepreneur it may also help partially answer the question: “Why is there so much more innovation happening in America compared to Europe”?
3. We live in a Power Law World
You probably heard something like this:
- 90% of land is owned by the richest 10% of the people
- 90% of the software problems are caused by the nastiest 10% of the bugs.
- 90% of the complaints are raised by the most demanding 10% of the customers
This is called the Power Law and it provides a neat mathematical explanation of why things in the real world are so unevenly distributed. Regarding startups, in the book it was shown that despite VCs providing only something like 0.1% of all US business funding, VC funded companies make up 11% of US GDP.
In other words, small portion of heavily targeted investment amounts to disproportionately large economic value. The lesson here, according to Peter, is that this principle is greatly applicable to an individual’s life. You have only one shot in your life and you cannot diversify your “life portfolio” the same way you can your stocks. Your best bet for stratospheric success is to look hard for that 1 golden opportunity and invest all your effort there.
This passage calmed me down. I sometimes feel like a failure when I hear about all these super young CEOs already making it big in their teens or early 20s. It sometimes makes me want to quit my job and pursue 5 startup projects at the same time to experience what it feels to be like them. Luckily, Thiel explains why this is not wise.
According to the Power Law, it pays to be patient, to rigorously scrutinize opportunities in your entrepreneurial quest and to commit fully if-and-only-if you find a great one.
If this happens this year or the next is irrelevant in the greater scheme of things, as long as it comes one day. Once you are on the right track, the pay-off will be massive and will make up for the seemingly wasted time of searching for the right opportunity.
Finally, next time you get intimidated by the next teenage crypto millionaire, remember that Jeff Bezos started Amazon when he was 30 and that Ray Croc took over McDonald’s in his 50s.
Conclusion
Are you into tech startups? Are you maybe thinking of creating one yourself? Or investing into one? This book is for you.
Have you read it already? Then let me know what chapters you liked the most.
Thank you for reading my article!
Have a great day!
