* It is better to risk boldness than triviality. Lots of iteration.)Īccording to Thiel, the four lessons above were mistakenly accepted as dogma for the modern day startup because of the mistakes of the past proposing the opposite principles instead: The past does not equal the future: According to Thiel, the business mistakes of the past have dictated the approach entrepreneurs decide to take for the future.įor example: Silicon Valley entrepreneurs learned four big lessons from the dot-com crash that still guide business thinking today: For example: just because investors over-invested in “technology” in the late ‘90s (the dot com era) doesn’t mean that entrepreneurs of today should become strict adherents to being as “lean” as possible in their business approach. That last sentence was so good it deserves to be repeated: “The first step to thinking clearly is to question what we think we know about the past.”įar too often, we make premature conclusions about business based on misinterpreted reactions to past mistakes. The first step to thinking clearly is to question what we think we know about the past.” The internet craze of the ‘90s was the biggest bubble since the crash of 1929, and the lessons learned afterward define and distort almost all thinking about technology today. But the distortions caused by bubbles don’t disappear when they pop. “Conventional beliefs only ever appear arbitrary and wrong in retrospect whenever one collapses, we call the old belief a bubble.

* Innovation = creating and doing something totally new.ĭON'T BE AFRAID TO ASK CONTRARIAN QUESTIONS. Really and truly do your best to “think differently” and go from “0 to 1” rather than “1 to n”. going from “0 to 1” (doing something that’s never been done before).īottom line? Challenge the status quo. Thiel spends a great deal of the preface and first chapter putting into perspective the difference between going from “1 to n” (doing more of what's already been done) vs. The act of creation is singular, as is the moment of creation, and the result is something fresh and strange.” But every time we create something new, we go from 0 to 1. “Doing what we already know how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar.

0 to 1 peter thiel pdf