Thinking Movement about the Future "From 0 to 1" Peter Thiel

This book mainly reveals how Peter Thiel started the thinking movement of business and future from 0 to 1.

From 0 to 1, the emphasis is on innovation, qualitative change, verticality, blue ocean, monopoly, uniqueness, non-zero sum, and huge profits;

From 1 to n, the emphasis is on replication, quantitative change, Horizontal, red ocean, competition, first, zero sum, small profits;

Foreword:

If you copy what they do, you are not learning from them. Successful people always find value in unexpected places and they follow principles, not secrets.

Chapter 1 (Future Challenges):

On what important issues do you have different views from others?

Most people think that the future of the world is determined by globalization, but the fact is - technology is more influential.

Chapter 2 (Party Like It’s 1999):

Bold attempts are better than mediocrity and conservatism, bad plans are better than no plans, it’s hard to make money in a competitive market, the same goes for marketing and products Important, these dogmas are not necessarily important. What matters is how much of your understanding is based on incorrect reactions to past mistakes? The most anti-mainstream action is not to resist the trend, but to maintain independent thinking within the trend.

Chapter 3 (All Successful Businesses Are Different)

What valuable companies have not yet been founded? Competitive companies set prices by the market, while monopolistic companies (providing consumers with products that other companies cannot provide) determine their own supply and pricing. Don’t follow the trend and build a business without distinction. What we are facing is an extremely brutal competitive landscape, and consumers have a large number of choices to obtain information.

Monopoly: describes the union of several markets to disguise their monopoly, maintain monopoly profits and have room to think about other things.

Competition: the intersection of several small markets to exaggerate their uniqueness

Chapter 4 (Awareness of Competition)

Competition is not only an economic concept, nor is it just a trouble that individuals and enterprises must solve in the market. The important thing is that competition is an idea, and this idea traps us in competition. Don’t put your experience on your competitors and lose sight of what’s really important. Competitive emotions can blind you.

Chapter 5 (Late Mover Advantage)

High cash flow brings high premiums, the value of the New York Times and Twitter companies. The value of a company today is the sum of the profits it will create in the future. A business that is making money now is not necessarily worth it, and vice versa (especially in the tech world). Characteristics of monopolies: patented technology, network effects, economies of scale and brand advantages. This is not a checklist - there are no shortcuts for monopolies, but analyzing these characteristics can help your company survive longer. Remember that a brand that does not come from substance is very dangerous. No technology company relies solely on branding to grow.

How to build a monopoly: Choose the market carefully, occupy small markets, and expand the scale carefully. If there is already an industry giant, try to avoid competition as much as possible and don't be hostile.

Chapter 6 (Success is not winning the lottery)

In 1976, Jobs realized that only by accurately planning for the future can we change the entire world, rather than listening to focus groups or copying others. Human success. In a world where everyone is confused about the future, companies with clear goals are always underestimated. You are not a lottery ticket whose fate is determined by probabilities.

Chapter 7 (Look at money)

Money can make money, focus on the nature of the business when investing, rather than casting a wide net and waiting for the probability of loss like buying a lottery ticket or lottery.

Invest in the essence, rise and fall according to exponentiation

Chapter 8 (Secret)

The truth that becomes common sense cannot bring you any advantage, because it is no longer secret. Don’t lose your curiosity to discover secrets. The same goes for business. Successful businesses are built on developing but unknown secrets about how the world works. The best entrepreneurs know that all successful businesses are built on little-known secrets. Good companies are world-changing conspirators, and when you share your secrets, your audience becomes your conspirators.

Chapter 9 (Foundation determines destiny)

Start-ups without a good foundation cannot be saved. As a founder, your first job is to lay the foundation, because you can’t build a great business on a flawed foundation.

The better the company does, the less the CEO gets paid because he has to push himself to work harder. Cash bonuses are not king, stocks can make employees work hard, and it is wrong to give everyone the same share of stocks. Equal distribution from the outset would also be arbitrary and unfair, and in fact no method of allocating ownership can completely avoid resentment. Those with higher risk costs get more shares. As long as the company is innovating, entrepreneurship is not over.

Chapter 10 (Creating a Gang Culture)

Keep employees closely united rather than staying together for business reasons. Talented people who love the same cause as us. Each employee only focuses on one thing, and defining roles can reduce conflicts. Being called a cult or a gang by outsiders is not a bad thing. Recruitment is the core competency of every company. A person who is outstanding and willing to work with team members to accomplish what they love.

Chapter 11 (Customers don’t come automatically)

Every salesperson is an actor: their first priority is persuasion, not sincerity. The world is driven by sales pitches. Lobbying is an art. If you invent a new product but don't have an effective way to market it, it's going to be hard to stay in business - no matter how good your product is.

No matter how good the product is - even if it can be easily integrated into people's existing habits and make those who try it fall in love at first sight - it must be backed by a comprehensive promotion plan. The core function of the product can encourage users to invite other friends to become users, so that the product can achieve viral marketing.

Good products do not need to be promoted, which is the most hypocritical sales pitch. It implies (everyone thinks this product is good and many people will invest in it) that promoting the company to the media is a necessary prerequisite for promoting it to others. Everyone has something to sell. You are the salesperson.

Chapter 12 (Humans and Computers)

Computers are tools to assist humans, not substitutes. They develop computers to enhance human capabilities rather than eliminate them. People will compete for jobs and resources, computers will not.

People can make plans and decisions but are not good at processing large amounts of data. Computers are the opposite. There are essential differences between the two.

Humans compete for the same resources, but machines do not make demands and all value flows to humans. Most of them are supplementary.

The human-computer review method is the most efficient. How can computers help people solve problems?

Chapter 13 (Future and Trends)

Engineering problem, is it a breakthrough or an improvement (end users feel 10 times better)/Is the time right? Start a business now/Are you trying to capture a large share of a small market?/Do you have a suitable team/Is there a way to sell the product/Can you maintain your market position in the next 10 or 20 years/Have you discovered something unique that others have not discovered? Opportunity/

Every loser starts from a generally accepted concept. , the company that comes up with the best solution to a specific problem can maximize profits. Broad goals equal no goals

The best problems are the problems that no one has tried to solve. The best projects are the projects that people ignore or do not promote. Doing things that are different is good for society. , a profit-making method that is conducive to companies occupying new monopoly markets

Chapter 14 (Founder’s refutation)

Their behavior is weird, but they are full of ideas. Not familiar with worldly affairs, yet passionate and focused. Absolute retard and genius.

Final ending: The most important first step in making the future not just from 0 to 1 is to think independently. Only by re-understanding the world can we reconstruct the world.

What I read is Gao Yufang's translation

Good sentence:

It states that oceans and notoriety constitute a channel for public catharsis. Shifting the blame onto a scapegoat is beneficial to society when faced with public outrage. Before the execution, people worshiped the scapegoat like a god.

Path dependence (someone puts 5 monkeys in a cage and hangs a bunch of bananas in the middle of the cage. As long as a monkey reaches for the banana, all the monkeys will be taught a lesson with high-pressure water until No monkey dared to take action anymore.

Then a new monkey was used to replace one of the monkeys in the cage. The new monkey did not know the "rules" here and actually extended its upper limbs to get the banana. As a result, the 4 monkeys in the original cage were offended. A monkey, so they performed the punishment task for humans and beat the new monkey until it obeyed the "rules" here.

The experimenters continued to replace the monkeys that had initially experienced high-pressure water punishment. In the end, all the monkeys in the cage were new, but no monkey dared to touch a banana anymore.

At first, the monkey was afraid of being "implicated" and did not allow other monkeys to touch the banana. This is reasonable.

But later on, neither humans nor high-pressure water intervened, but the new monkeys stuck to the "no bananas allowed" system. This is the self-reinforcing effect of path dependence. )

McDell: "What would I have done if I had it?"

Don't invest in technology companies with CEOs wearing suits. They should wear jeans and a T-shirt.

If humans were angels, there would be no need for government.

The very few who hold the secret

foolishly open their hearts completely

Show their passion to others

Always suffer persecution And the Burning

————Faust

The road that continues to extend forward starts from the door of the house. ----The Lord of the Rings

Instead of becoming a mediocre person who knows only a little about everything, it is better to perfect important things.

In an unclear world, people just like unlimited options;

Hard work will bring you good luck,

You not only have your own life You have agency, and you also have agency in an important corner of the world, and all of this starts with resisting the unfair dominance of probability, because you are not a lottery ticket whose fate is determined by probability.

Doing business is like playing chess. The chess master Capablanca said: "If you want to win, the first job is to study the endgame."

Any company will cause profit losses when competing with competitors of equal strength, nightclubs and restaurants This is a typical example: Successful people may earn a lot of money today, but their cash flow may decrease within a few years, because customers will always choose newer and more fashionable places to spend money.

For a company to be valuable, it must not only grow, but also develop sustainably.

Audience tastes are fickle.

Competition is a costly business.

Marx said: People fight because of their differences. The proletariat and the bourgeoisie fight because their views are completely different. The greater the difference, the greater the conflict.

Shakespeare said: All fighters are more or less alike. It is unknown why they fought.

In the business world, balance is static, and static is death.

Monopoly is not a crux of business, nor is it an abnormality, but a reflection of every successful enterprise. Every monopoly company obtains its monopoly status by solving a unique problem; and failed companies cannot escape competition.

Some ideas can't wait.

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

You can come to China and give a speech to Xu Xiaoping and then let him Pigeons...

If you find that all the cars on the road are going the wrong way, you are probably driving the wrong way. But an awesome person can make everyone think that he is going against the grain.