Six comparisons that Thiel made
2016-07-19
A Canadian actor and an official account of Wechat both recommend this book, saying that a few redefinitions the author brings to some conventional beliefs are refreshing. So, without any intention of founding a startup I read this book hoping to be somehow inspired by Thiel's novel thoughts.
The ideas of monopoly and competition are truly new to me, and the comparison the author makes between them is also thought-provoking. To him, monopoly stands for uniqueness and irreplaceability in aspects of technology, branding, exponential growth and nitch market, while competition means ordinary,or as he puts it,"many-sided mediocrity". This is similar to the Blue Ocean and Red Ocean Strategy,which can be summarised as competition damages the profits,so monopoly is what to be pursued for.
Apart from this one, he proposed five other comparisons(He didn't, I summed them up in this relatively clear form):
Present vs. Future
Technology vs. Globalisation
Elite vs. Mass (T-shirt Nerd vs. Seemingly Suit Elite)
Cults vs. Conventional Beliefs
Computer vs. Humans
There is an additional one-Cash Obsession vs. Ambition Obsession which can be categorised into the comparison of Elite vs. Mass, and indicates respectively to Present and Future.
In Thiel's view, future CEO of startups should focus on the future or the long term rather than on the present or the short term. And this is why he also makes highlight several times on planning ability,claiming "long-term planning is often undervalued by our indefinite short-term world".
By Technology vs. Globalisation, Thiel wants to oppose one of the future hypothesis that the now developing countries will catch up with the now developed countries and that the world will arrive at an economic plateau because to him, that plateau equals to a kind of stagnation, which certainly is not ideal for the world.
Thiel received a lof of scoff on his personal sartorial taste owing to his former scoff on the entrepreneurs who prefer suit to T-shirt.Well, let's just take it as an interesting anecdote.
When I read about his views on Cults vs. Conventional Beliefs, I rather admire his courage to speak it out. Cult conveys traditionally a negative sense, and sometimes even dangerous, but as language is inevitably implicit, I know what he meant by "cult". Cults and conventional beliefs(or stereotypes) are in the extremes of the ideological spectrum, and at the extremes of the spectrum,both are really bad.
The last one also consists one of Thiel's non-conventional ideas, that computers are not rivals of men, but rather our complementarity tool. This viewpoint inadverdently revealed his perfectionism inclination:let the best to do the best.If computers are best at mathematical problems, why bother human labour? Likewise, if human adapt best to adaptive situations, why waste time improving AI's low accuracy and risk it at all?
Bottom line:this book is more about how to think than how to do, and the readers are not limited in entrepreneurs.
ps:
Pros from Amazon.com:
"Zero to One is a refreshing intellectual deep dive into the motives behind entrepreneurship."
"This book was worth my time and refined several core beliefs."
"Rather than offer scrips or formulars, Thiel discusses the logic of starting a company that will make a truly meaningful and unique impact on the world.“
Cons from Amazon.com:
"A better title for this book would have been ‘six ideas Peter Thiel wants to put out there' but that admittedly sounds less catchy than 'Zero to One'.And two of the ideas are huge,but the rest are filler."
"The closing chapter is a vomit-inducing hagiography of founders.’
‘The book is basically a series of rambling,disjointed essays that spell out Thiel's philosophies on the world,none of which are particularly earth shattering."
I have no comments on this comments. I care more about their punchline than their pertinence.
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