Rock & Roll 101: Zero to One (Highway to Hell)

I summarized some of the other points I found interesting…

1.????? Mind hacking for Zero to One

Zero to One means the moment of creation, creating something new and unique which is singular.

Taking from one to many is a pretty routine task in today’s world. While doing this, we don’t innovate and seek advanced solutions. Just replicate what has been invented.

Creating something new is very challenging, requiring different and authentic perspectives which cannot be mimicked from other successful cases.

Rather than focusing on what has been done before, we all need to focus on finding our own path. Thiel says the best paths are new and untired.

2.????? Companies exist to make money, not lose it. This should be very obvious.

My relationship with money is not very strong. ?This was something not obvious to me. In my close circle, nobody talks about how to make money. Their interests are towards science and technology, and they love what they do. Not even once, did I hear from my friends doing research in academia to talk about how to take their research to market and make money out of it. To translate their research, often path is to go to bigger organizations where things are commercialized, distributed globally and used by people. Often this is also not fulfilling since you become a part of very slow machinery. I believe we need to establish a healthy relationship with money and what we do.

3.????? After the dot-com bubble, following new principles are introduced. I let you think of them.

a.????? It is better to risk boldness than triviality.

b.????? ?A bad plan is a better plan than no plan.

c.????? Competitive markets destroy profits.

d.????? Sales matters just as much as products.

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4.????? All happy companies are different.

There is no science in doing business, whatever works for a company’s favour happens once. Things are not repeatable, or experimentally verifiable. So, it makes every “Great” company is one of a kind.

Ask yourself before: What valuable company is nobody building?

Here Thiel uses the opposite analogy of Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”.?

Thiel’s way is” all happy companies are different” because they come up with something unique, and radically different to differentiate themselves from competitors and escape from competition. All unhappy companies are alike because they fail to escape essential sameness and competition.

5.????? Competition for losers

Life makes you compete with one another at every stage of your life. You compete to be the best in class, and you have to be better than average to receive better exam results, then you compete in national exams to go to so-called good schools or universities. When you are at work now, you compete for promotion. You are even in competition with your own siblings when you grow up. Now Thiel says… but the New York Times translate it as competition is for losers.

So, what should we do?

It is true competition makes you one-sided, you only focus on beating your competitor with one way or another. Putting extra effort into tiny details and mini differentiators to be better than others. It requires continuous effort and stigma to have this battle forever.

On the other hand, targeting monopoly, being the only one, you are the only one who is good at something.

So, Thiel suggests that always aim for monopoly and avoid competition.

6.????? Don’t disrupt

This was one interesting point. Ideally, in whatever you do, you want to have a disruption because you believe it describes how a firm can use new technology to introduce a low-end product at low prices, improve the product over time and eventually overtake even the premium products. He believes disruption has recently transmogrified into a self-congratulatory buzzword for anything posing as trendy and new.

For him, disruption is a call for attention, and you look for trouble.

Disruption also gives you a FIRST-MOVER advantage. Being the first mover is a tactic, it is not a goal. He states that Being the first mover doesn’t do you any good If someone else comes along and unseats you. It is much better to be the LAST MOVER that is to make the last great development in a specific market and enjoy years or even decades of monopoly profits.

He quotes Grandmaster Jose Raul Capablanca “You must study the endgame before everything else”

I think it makes sense…

7.????? Questions every company should answer.

a.????? Engineering question: Can you create breakthrough technology instead of incremental improvements?

b.????? Timing question: Is now the right time to start your particular business?

c.????? The monopoly question: Are you starting with a big share of a small market ?

d.????? The people question: Do you have the right team?

e.????? The distribution question: Do you have a way to not just create but deliver your product?

f.??????? The durability question: Will your market position be defensible 10 and 20 years into the future?

g.?????? The secret question: Have you identified a unique opportunity that others don’t see?

Peter Thiel says “Our task today is to find singular ways to create the new things that will make the future not just different, but better- to go from zero to one. The essential first step is to think for yourself. “

Btw,

I also googled whatever came to my mind, meaning anything in the entrepreneurship literature. Of course, there is a recent publication on entrepreneurship “Highway to hell or Paradise City? Exploring the Role of Growth Hacking in Learning from Innovation Failure “(Technovation?131 (2024): 102945) Have a look at the publication, it is pretty interesting, the introduction starts with a line from one of the Indian presidents “Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam”. He said:

“If you fail, never give up because F.A.I.L. means ‘First Attempt In Learning’.