The Gospel According to Peter Thiel

Have you ever read a book, and wondered what you've been doing with your life ? A book that makes you want to quit your day job, and "find your passion, purpose or life meaning" ? For me, Peter Thiel's "Zero to One: Notes on Startups or How to Build the Future" definitely fits into that category. Just fyi, Peter was the co-founder of PayPal, he was Facebook's first outside investor, and now largely known for his PE/VC activities and philanthropy.

Since I didn't have much to do (except take my daughter to a basketball game between GMU and St Bonaventure), I decided to do something worthwhile i.e. Read a book. For a reason only known to the Universe, I chose "Zero to One". You definitely have to read it for yourself. Below are some of the gems that I found.... I think in the Author(s) prior lives, they were philosophers/futurists (while the book was written by Peter from his teaching days at Stanford, it was largely based on Notes taken by one of his students - Blake Masters). Here the 5 verses that jump out at me:

1) Today's "best practices" lead to dead ends; the best paths are new and untried.

2) Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply than genius.

3) Successful people find value in unexpected places, and they do this by thinking about business from first principles instead of formulas.

4) No one can predict the future exactly, but we know 2 things: it's going to be different, and it must be rooted in today's world.

5) What important truth do very few people agree with you on ? (Examples of wrong answers will be based on what people already agree with you on, or taking a one side of a familiar debate. By the way, a good answer sounds more like; "Most people believe in x, but the truth is the opposite of x").