If You Want to be the Next Unicorn....

Peter Thiel, best known as a venture capitalist who made a bundle out of co-founding Paypal, is the author of a fascinating book about business: Zero to One (2014). The thesis is that it is relatively easy to improve on something that already exists. Thiel asks us to think of that as getting from one to two, or from two to four.

But creating something new? a whole new industry? That involves operating at a different level.

Consider Facebook. With this company and website already in the field, it was relatively straightforward for other entrepreneurs to vary what Mark Zuckerberg had done, and to create new, perhaps sometimes better, social networks. With the idea of a digital social network already in place, Jack Dorsey, the creator of twitter, was going from one to two.

But Zuckerberg and the small group around him had gone from zero to one.

Meet that challenge. Don’t imitate Zuckerberg. Learn from him. There's a difference.

Now you don't need to read Thiel's book. I've just given you the gist.

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