On the other hand, a startup most valuable asset is a new way of thinking. If that’s the case in your company, you should quit. In those organizations, politicking is more important than getting work done. In some big and dysfunctional corporations entrenched interests work as a roadblock to change. Peter Thiel says that globalization is a horizontal change: taking what works in one place and replicating it somewhere else.Ĭhina wants to be and do as the United States does.īut without radical changes in technology, the world cannot sustain billions of people living with the same US standards. Vertical is not easy to do and to envision because it means finding new paths that nobody explored before. Vertical improvement means doing something completely new.Horizontal: Horizontal means incremental improvements on what exists already.Thiel talks about two different kinds of changes: horizontal and vertical.

Zero to One: The Vertical & Horizontal Way The author says that nobody can see the future, but we know two things about it: it will be different, and yet it will be rooted in today’s world. If things change drastically over the course of a decade, then the future is now. If society doesn’t change for a thousand years, then the future is a thousand years away. Peter Thiel says that the future is only the future if it’s different from today. Your best bet then is to learn the mindset of going from zero to one: Chapter 1: The Challenge of The Future The next Zuckerberg won’t build a social network and the next Larry Page won’t build a search engine. Mindsets Come FirstĮvery major moment in business happens one time only. He is most famous for having launched PayPal with Elon Musk. Pick founders and employees who share your same vision and your same cultureĪbout The Author: Peter Thiel is a billionaire startup entrepreneur, investor and venture capitalist.Think like an enlightened cooperator: don’t think disrupt, don’t think competition: think new, think value-adding.

Don’t look for incremental, look for 10x: have the hubris to dream big.

Chapter 11: If You Build It, Will They Come?.

Chapter 6: You Are Not a Lottery Ticket.

Chapter 3: All Happy Companies Are Different.

Book zero to one