Today I started and finished "Zero to One: Notes on startups, or How to Build the Future" by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters.
As the book is very well structures and has several schematics and graphs I took a a couple of notes which I decided to share here and on my blog in order to invite people to comment on them.
This summary reflects the main points that were interesting for me and should not be seen as a complete summary of the book.
13. 1. The Engineering question: Can you create breakthrough technology instead of incremental
improvements?
2. The Timing question: Is now the right time to start your particular business?
3. The monopoly question: Are starting with a big share from a small market?
4. The people question: Do you have the right team?
5. The distribution question: Do you have a way to deliver your product?
6. The durability question: Will your market position be defensible 10 and 20 years into the future?
7. The secret question: Have you identified an unique opportunity that others don't see?
7 questions every business should answer
14. Uncontrollable organisms Perfectly determined code
Poorly understood, naturally Well understood, artificial
Indefinite, random Definite, engineering
Heavily regulated Basically unregulated
Expensive (>$1BN per drug) Cheap (a little seed money)
High-salaried, unaligned lab drones Committed entrepreneurial hackers
Indefinite vs Definite Optimism for startups
Biotech Startups Software startups
Subject
Environment
Approach
Regulation
Cost
Team
15. People normal distribution of traits
frequency
averageweak/nerd
idiot savant
disagreeable
outsider
poor
infamous
strong/athlete
polymath
charismatic
insider
rich
famous
16. Founders distribution of traits
frequency
averageweak/nerd
idiot savant
disagreeable
outsider
poor
infamous
strong/athlete
polymath
charismatic
insider
rich
famous