Peter Thiel

Preface

Every moment in business only happens once. It's easier to add something to what we are already familiar with, going from 1-n, creating something new is much harder 0-1.
Technology is miraculous because it allows us to do more with less.

1. The Challenge of the Future

Interview question: "What important truth do very few people agree with you on?" Intellectually difficult because everyone is taught to agree with others. Psychologically difficult because you must answer something that seems unpopular. A good answer is "Most people believe in X, but the truth is the opposite of X."
When we think about the future, we hope for a future of progress. Horizontal or extensive progress means copying things that work (1-n). Vertical progress means doing new things (0-1).
Horizontal progress is globalization. Vertical progress is technology.
Most people think the future of the world will be globalization, but the truth is that technology matters more (answering the interview question).
Startups promote new thinking/technology because they operate on the principle that you need to work with other people to get stuff done, but also stay small enough to convince new thinking. Big companies often don't take risks, and an individual can't build an entire industry.

By the end of the 1990s, internet companies and their stocks are skyrocketing even though they have made no profit. The dot com mania started in September 1998.
Dot-com mania was intense but short, only 18 months from September 1998 - March 2000. It was a Silicon Valley gold rush. Everyone was starting companies and money was ramping up. You can double the value of your company by adding .com at the end.
Paypal needed to attract customers for their emailing money service, so they decided to pay people to sign up.
Paypal also needed more money, so they decided to raise funds as quickly as possible before the crash, and they were quite successful because of the dot-com era.
After the crash, globalization replaced technology and investors went back to real estate.
Lessons learned
- Make incremental advances - grand visions inflate the bubble
- Stay lean and flexible - planning is arrogant and inflexible. Treat entrepreneurship as an experiment
- Improve on the competition - You should build your company by improving on recognizable products already offered by successful competitors. Don't try to create a new market prematurely.
- Focus on product, not on sales - Technology is mainly about development, not distribution
Creating new technology is still important, but we need to understand the business and avoid mistakes from the past.