Zero to One
Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters


(Click for Amazon book review)

BOOK REVIEW by OnTheIssues.org:

Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters was a student of PayPal founder Peter Thiel at Stanford. His published notes on Thiel's class on start-ups attracted a lot of attention, leading to their collaboration on Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future. One should probably take this as primarily Thiel's work as he is credited as author "with" Masters, whose name is in a smaller font. The bond between them is presumably strong. Thiel is the major contributor--to the tune of $10 million dollars--to a superPAC backing Masters' Senate bid.

Although one can discern the conservative viewpoint of the authors, what's on their mind here is setting forth practical rules and ideas for business startups. Their notion is that success goes to those who uncover something new, whether technology or business model, rather than making incremental changes to operations that already exist. They look with disdain at the variety of online pet supply stores that launched in the 1990s, which focused on competing with each other rather than coming up with something different. Most ended up failing. By contrast, they point to companies like PayPal, Airbnb, and Uber which uncovered what they describe as a "secret," addressing the marketplace in a way that hadn't been seen before and changing it in the process.

For a business text it's written in a breezy and highly readable style which is not to say it lacks substance or organization, but just that it's as likely to cite Lady Gaga as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, or Elon Musk. Where it might shed light on the authors' politics--and this is only a little stretch--is lauding successful corporate founders who might be deemed eccentric or disruptors, and successful start-ups as bordering on cults. That both are supporters of former president Donald Trump is not surprising. Their criticism of renewable energy--dubbed here "cleantech"--makes sense in terms of the business model they are using but reducing the climate crisis to a matter of business strategy might seem shortsighted.

Readers across the political spectrum should be able to gain useful information here, but those who don't share their political views may wish to take it with a grain of salt.

-- Daniel M. Kimmel, Oct. 2022

OnTheIssues.org excerpts:  (click on issues for details)

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2024 primary contenders' book excerpts:
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• The Contender, by Michael Shnayerson (biography of Gov. Andrew Cuomo)
• Stronger Together: A Blueprint for America's Future, by the Hillary Clinton/Tim Kaine campaign
• A Most Disorderly Court: Scandal and Reform in the Florida Judiciary, by Martin A. Dyckman
• The Faith of Mike Pence, by Leslie Montgomery
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• The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis, by Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse
• The Diversity Myth: Multiculturism and Political Intolerance, by David O. Sacks & Peter Thiel
• Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future, by Peter Thiel and Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters