Reading Rainbow Review of Peter Thiel’s “Zero to One”

One of my pet peeves, when participating in book clubs, is when individuals personalize the assertions of the author and thus get sidetracked from insights that come from the book’s key arguments. Actually, I stopped participating in a book club because a number of my colleagues could not get past the self-proclaimed personal attacks they felt the author was making towards a belief or concept that was near or dear to them. So with that said, of course, I forget my own pet peeve when I start reading Peter Thiel’s “Zero to One.” Why would I interpret excerpts from this well thought out narrative on what characteristics are needed in business to create a game-changing product? Well, you would need to know a little about my background — only three letter as a matter of fact.

“Hi my name is Earnest Sweat and I…(dramatic pause)…am an M.B.A.” (Hi Earnest).

I know, I’m sure I have disappointed many of my readers. Please don’t judge me.

Anyway, “Zero to One” is a book that tries to uncover why some businesses have been transcendent while others have only built small improvements on normalized technology. The book is full of one-liners that had me feeling like the “One.” But other quotes made defensive, saying that I am not a “Zero” or fulfillment of Silicon Valley’s caricature of MBAs. Ultimately, I reminded myself of my “don’t take it personal” rule when reading and was able to appreciate the many insights that are conveyed through the chapters. But I would be remised if I didn’t share my favorite Zeroes and Ones quotes. What’s a tech blog post without zeros and ones (with no context other than notes I wrote in the pages)?

ZERO’s

“Higher education is the place where people who had big plans in high school get stuck in fierce rivalries with equally smart peers over conventional careers like management consulting and investment banking.” (Shade)

“This is why successful network business rarely get started by MBA types: the initial markets are so small that they often don’t even appear to be business opportunities at all.”

ONE’s

“There’s no reason why the future should happen only at Stanford, or in college or in Silicon Valley.”

“In business, money is either an important thing or it is everything” (Pretty sure this is a Kanye lyric)

“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.”

Earnest Sweat is a Startup Adviser and Business Ops professional for various accelerators. Sweat specializes in sourcing, managing and mentoring startups within the fin tech, ed tech, and real estate tech sectors. If you have any questions, comments or requests please connect with Earnest through LinkedIn, Twitter, or AngelList.

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