The great secret of our time is that there are still uncharted frontiers to expl
ore and new inventions to create. In "Zero to One," legendary entrepreneur and i
nvestor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create those new thin
gs.
Thiel begins with the contrarian premise that we live in an age of technol
ogical stagnation, even if we're too distracted by shiny mobile devices to notic
e. Information technology has improved rapidly, but there is no reason why progr
ess should be limited to computers or Silicon Valley. Progress can be achieved i
n any industry or area of business. It comes from the most important skill that
every leader must master: learning to think for yourself.
Doing what someone e
lse already knows how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of somethin
g familiar. But when you do something new, you go from 0 to 1. The next Bill Gat
es will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won't
make a search engine. Tomorrow's champions will not win by competing ruthlessly
in today's marketplace. They will escape competition altogether, because their b
usinesses will be unique.
