PLEASE NOTE: This is a summary of the book and NOT the original book. 
A 20-minute Summary of Peter Thiel’s Zero to One

Inside this Instaread Summary:

• Overview of the entire book
• Introduction to the important people in the book
• Summary and analysis of all the chapters in the book
• Key Takeaways of the book
• A Reader's Perspective

Preview of this summary:

Chapter 1

Progress is the goal of the future. Horizontal and vertical are the two kinds of progress. Horizontal progress means more of what is currently working. Another word for horizontal progress is globalization, the act of taking a product and integrating it world wide. Vertical progress comes from doing new things that have not been done before. Technology, the new and better way of doing something, is another word for vertical progress. In terms of the world’s future, technology matters more than globalization.

New technology generally comes from startups. These small groups of people with a mission have improved the world one new idea at a time. Big organizations are bureaucracies that move too slowly. Individuals alone cannot develop new ideas. New thinking is a new company’s strongest characteristic.

Chapter 2

When a person can recognize a popular belief that is delusional, that person can find the truth that few believe behind it. Traditional beliefs are seen as wrong only in retrospect.

Although the 1990s are remembered as being a prosperous decade, they were actually a time when the old economy could not withstand the challenges of globalization. The internet boom and bust at the end of the decade was intense but lasted only eighteen months. The most successful companies had what seemed to be an anti-business model where they lost money as they got larger. This is why the mania could not be sustained. At this time, globalization replaced technology as the best hope for the future.

Entrepreneurs who stayed in business after the dot-com bust identified four lessons that act as general rules for the business world today. The first is that small steps forward are the only safe path. The second is to remain flexible and lean. The third is to improve products already being made by successful competitors. The fourth is to focus primarily on the product. The opposite of these four rules are actually better principles for startup companies to follow. Risk being bold, have a plan, competition destroys profits, and sales are as important as the product…