Zero to One

Peter Thiel, the entrepreneur and investor who helped build PayPal and Palantir and was an early backer of Facebook, argues that the world is not innovating as fast as it believes. In his view, the rapid rise of information technology has hidden a broader stall in progress. Phones and software dazzle us, but the same energy has not gone into discovering new things in other fields.

The book's central idea is a split between two kinds of progress. Copying what already works, whether that means opening another store or launching another version of a familiar product, is horizontal. It takes the world from 1 to n by spreading something that already exists. Creating something genuinely new is vertical, and it takes the world from 0 to 1. Thiel holds that the next great technology founders will not repeat what Bill Gates, Larry Page or Sergey Brin did. They will build something different in kind.

From there he makes the case that the strongest businesses avoid competition rather than winning at it. A company that fights rivals for a share of an existing market is stuck in a grind, while one that offers something truly unique can build lasting value. Getting there, he says, depends on the leader's most important skill, which is thinking for yourself instead of following the crowd.

Zero to One is a short, argumentative guide to starting companies and spotting opportunity, written with an optimistic view of what America and its innovators can still achieve. It teaches readers to ask the kinds of questions that uncover value in places most people have not looked.