Seems Insightful Until You Think A Little Deeper

What made the experience of listening to Zero to One the most enjoyable?

I am a fan of Peter Thiel, and have read the notes from the Stanford course upon which this book is based. The course notes are better because they expound better on the broad concepts. In the end, the audiobook is certainly worth the price of purchase, but I fail to give it 5 stars because I know from these notes that Thiel can do better.

To summarize two broad concepts, businesses should pursue monopoly because that is where the lion's share of profit is made. Think about Google's monopoly in search (see my comment below about this), or Microsoft's former monopoly in operating systems. Thiel artfully demonstrates how profits flow in a Power Law to these types of firms. Good enough. I agree wholeheartedly with this concept, and Thiel does a better job of explaining it than a dry Econ 101 textbook, but at its heart, it's not new thinking.

The second broad concept is that a series of Power Laws dictate a range of commercialization activities, from the aforementioned profit flow to fundraising success to income to hollywood hits to you name it. This bears repeating because so many entrepreneurs make the mistake of thinking that markets they are entering are more linear.

Both of the concepts are intertwined, and this is where Thiel could do better (he does do better in the course notes).

First of all, monopolies don't become such until one is made, and until that point, it is utterly non-obvious to the vast majority of others. Google's search monopoly, which isn't really a search monopoly but an advertising monopoly, was so unapparent that at the time of Google's founding, most of the smart money had decided that portals were the wave of the future. Only Google decided that building a better search engine was the way to go, and even they did not conceive of their advertising monopoly until many years later. Today, it appears obvious, but it discounts the incredible risks, the incredible execution, and yes, an incredible dose of luck to make it happen.

Second, the book glosses over (again, the course notes don't) another startling fact, which is that there are more powers laws at work to execute the creation of a monopoly. Some of these are:

1) Raising money. I know from experience that raising money requires years of nurturing contacts, and just appearing on an investors' doorstep to say, "I have a vision for a monopoly I want to create" will get you thrown out more often than not. Only a small number of people who are starting out have the ability to cross the chasm between getting funded and not. I would contend that having money to build out your monopoly is one of the prime factors to creating a monopoly. It's a chicken and egg problem.

2) Talent. The best talent wants to work with the best team, but how do you become the best team without having the money (see #1) or the yet-unborn monopoly? Thiel mostly discounts the role of luck, and I found that disingenous. Just take Thiel's own experience. How lucky was it that the two most formidable competitors in payments in 1999, headed by transformational leaders (Thiel and Elon Musk) were located within a few blocks of each other, making them capable of merging and becoming Paypal? How many payments companies might have rivaled Paypal if they were located next door to Elon Musk (not to mention Reid Hoffman and the rest of the mafia)?

3) Geography. Expanding on the concept of #2, there is a Power Law at work for people who are able to get into and afford Stanford Law? Without this, would Thiel be where he is today? Not to mention the founders of Yahoo, Google, Cisco, et al?

4) Buzz. Another chicken and egg problem is that of building buzz. Journalists only want to cover hot companies, but how do you become hot without building buzz? Only a small number of companies are able to cross this chasm.

In the course notes (but not the book), Thiel talks about 11 facets of building a company. You can miss on two or three of them. Otherwise, you are toast. It's threading about 8 needles at a time. These are the concepts that should have been expanded upon. To be fair, this would probably require a multi-volume set.

Thiel discounts the Gladwellian notion that any outlier success can be traced to some fortuitous events. Though I agree that these events are only obvious in hindsight, I'm not convinced.

To me, instruction about crossing these multiple chasms would be more helpful to those of us outside of the valley bubble. Not even "Crossing the Chasm" does a good job of that.

What about Blake Masters’s performance did you like?

He did an admirable job for not being a trained voice actor

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

My review tells the story. I was unsatisfied.

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216 people found this helpful

Mostly worthless drivel

This is your typical pop business book, slapping together the same tired examples to make some loosely related points, each either trivial yammering or overblown, unsubstantiated hype. The first hour is dedicated to zealous defense of monopolies, based on an extended false dichotomy with perfect competition.

If you're reading it to gather talking points for golf course or water cooler schmoozing, you'll get your money's worth. If you're interested in an exploration of the mechanisms of innovation in business, as the book promises, you'll be sorely disappointed.

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72 people found this helpful

Awesome Content. Hard to listen to.

What did you love best about Zero to One?

The content is awesome! The lessons broken down into subjects and themes like a college course really makes this book easy to follow and easy to get the overall message.

How could the performance have been better?

The narration was dull and soft spoken. Blake Masters is a super smart dude, just not the greatest audiobook narrator.

Any additional comments?

I highly suggest finding Blake Masters notes on Peter Thiel's class and reading those along with this book.

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46 people found this helpful

The importance of contrarian thinking

This book is itself contrarian in comparison to all other startup books out there. It does an amazing job of forcing you to destroy the foundations upon which you've built so many of your assumptions in the startup world, thereby revealing the truth of how to build something valuable in a world of copy & paste entrepreneurship.

All the real, non-bullshit, subconscious lessons that many successful entrepreneurs have either intuitively known or learned the hard way are concisely stated in this book.

I think I'll likely listen to it a few more times in order to untrain all the other thinking that's been ingrained in my head.

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42 people found this helpful

Painful to listen to

What disappointed you about Zero to One?

I couldn't listen to it. So boring. So dry. So painful. Seriously. I don't know if there was good content or not.

What could Peter Thiel and Blake Masters have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Narrator was just awful.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Monotone. Boring. Painful to listen to. (Did I mention painful?)

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35 people found this helpful

In my top 3 favorite Startup books

Where does Zero to One rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Of roughly 100 business, startup, marketing, tech books I'm listened to, this is a top 5 for sure. Between inspiration and wisdom, philosophy and experience, examples and challenges, this book is great for the first time or the many timed entrepreneur. Peter is a clear authority in the space, and this book is a summary of much of what he's learned.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Zero to One?

Explaining some of the beginnings of Paypal, and opportunities he sees available to future businesses.

Have you listened to any of Blake Masters’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I don't recall listening to Blake Masters before, however I would gladly listen to books narrated by him in the future. Calm voice, perfect for the wisdom based material in the book.

What did you learn from Zero to One that you would use in your daily life?

It has helped alter the way I will hire in the future. It's validated some theories and challenged other theories. It has me already looking for Zero-One type concepts vs horizontal product improvements in the fields I work in.

Any additional comments?

Just a thank you to Peter Thiel for writing this. Peter doesn't need the income from book sales, nor is he trying to force his way into becoming an authoritative figure in startups because he's already there. This is a gift. This is basically like getting a evening of the best cocktail conversation advice and stories from one of the hall of fame start up allstars.

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33 people found this helpful

Though provoking & inspiring

If you see yourself as someone with intentions to create something valuable for the world in your lifetime, this book is for you. It will give you a perspective on what being a contrarian and a founder actually means. It helps differentiate the popular myth attached to the words competition, capitalism, lean, disruption & puts them in the right context.

tl;dr In the valley? Need inspiring new ways of looking at the world? Listen to this book.

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21 people found this helpful

Great story, extremely poor narrator choice

Would you listen to Zero to One again? Why?

No. Once is enough, because the narrator's voice is unpleasantly grating, without any "gravitas". He sounds like a teenager. Audible has other excellent narrators. Why choose this particular narrator foir this wonderful book? I'm sure he's a perfectly nice person, but a "professional narrator" he is NOT.

Who was your favorite character and why?

N/A

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Terrible voice.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes, while driving. But I'm really suffering as I listen to it. Sheer willpower is carrying me through.

Any additional comments?

Audible: Please be sure to choose narrators with good voices. This is your business, after all. Thanks.

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20 people found this helpful

Monopolies are the best business to be in!

Start a monopoly, you'll be successful is the message of this book. There, I just saved you from listening to this dreadfully boring book, read by the most uninspired narrator. I was really excited when I heard about this book by Thiel, but he's so smart, why didn't he write an engaging book, read by someone with some actual emotion. I've been getting books from Audible for years now, and this may be be the worst book I've listened to. I kid you not: if my mind is a bit too busy and I have trouble sleeping, this book puts me out in just a few minutes. It's the preformer's tone, or monotone that does it.

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19 people found this helpful

Gems to be found but...bad choice on the reader;-(

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

The first 1/3 of the book was...well horrible. I found most of the early writing to be grandiose and without clear objectives. It made me wonder if it was a book on start-ups or a poorly written Philosophy text. The last portion of the book offers some great insights into business , mistakes, best practices and road signs to success.

Who was your favorite character and why?

This isn't a novel...

What didn’t you like about Blake Masters’s performance?

I'm sure Mr. Master's is a successful businessman but he needs to stay away from reading audio books. He took a pretty good book and made it painful to get through the audio version. Blake--All really great authors HIRE someone to read their books. Why? Because being a good writer does not make you a good reader.

The fact Mr. Masters or Mr. Thiel didn't realize this...well...just shows you can be talented in one area and not very clever in another.

Please guys...if you write any more books do reader auditions and decide on someone who does reading for a living.

Could you see Zero to One being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

No.

Any additional comments?

Hang in there when listening to this audio book. The authors provide some great insights into making a successful start up.

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13 people found this helpful