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 According to a new book from Peter Thiel, the investor and
PayPal co-founder, well-roundedness amounts to “many-sided
mediocrity.” Instead, his “Zero to One” urges entrepreneurs to
“focus relentlessly on one thing you’re good at doing.”
And yet this very readable and provocative book by Thiel, a
Stanford graduate with a degree in philosophy, draws on sources
from Shakespeare to Roman history to Lady Gaga and amounts to a
testament to the value of generalization.
Given his success founding a payments company, launching three
well-known investment firms, and now writing a bestselling book,
the same could be said for Thiel.
And it turns out his views on well-roundedness are more nuanced
than they may first appear.
“I come out against doing a scattered set of disconnected
activities, which is what kids are encouraged to do to get into
top universities,” said Thiel in an interview on Wednesday. He
funds a fellowship that gives $100,000 grants to youngsters,
from high school age to 23, who forgo school or drop out to
pursue a project.
“Good entrepreneurs have a fairly broad understanding of markets
and fields,” he said, arguing that is not at odds with his
book’s position that a good entrepreneur determines the one best
thing to do and then does it.
“Zero to One” is an example of how the most respected start-up
investors, often little known outside Silicon Valley, wield
influence that is based as much in their creative thinking as in
the big checks they write.
While others in the group, such as venture capitalists Marc
Andreessen and Bill Gurley, regularly share their wisdom over
blogs and Twitter, Thiel has until now held back.
His first tweet, a link to the Amazon listing for the new book,
went out earlier this month.
"Zero to one tweets," he joked when asked about his Twitter
background.
“I’m always uncomfortable throwing ideas out there that are half
baked,” he added.
But that doesn’t mean he’s uncomfortable throwing out ideas
about Twitter. On his book tour, he told CNBC that the service
was mismanaged and its executives probably smoked a lot of pot.
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In a subsequent interview with Reuters, he said he meant Twitter
executives have not developed the product as well as they should.
“One always has the sense there’s potential being missed,” he said.
Twitter Chief Executive Dick Costolo came up with his own
tongue-in-cheek retort.
"Working my way through a giant bag of Doritos," he tweeted in an
exchange with Jason Goldman, an early employee at Twitter. "I'll
catch up with you later."
In his book, Thiel takes on capitalism’s obsession with
competition—he prefers monopolies, defined as finding an untapped
market.
"Zero to one" refers to starting something from scratch, going from
nothing to something, which he says is more challenging and much
more important than refining an existing idea.
He also disparages Silicon Valley’s obsession with disruption, which
he writes has become “a self-congratulatory buzzword for anything
trendy.” More disturbingly, he argues, it encourages entrepreneurs
to define themselves against existing companies, rather than
thinking in big, fresh ways.
Thiel plays down the role that chance and background play in
individual success, urging readers to take control of their destiny.
“You are not a lottery ticket,” he writes.
But many of the examples he throws out of entrepreneurs who have
done the best job of harnessing success, including Jeff Bezos, Bill
Gates, and Warren Buffett, belie that point of view. They typically
hail from comfortable backgrounds that provided strong educations
and easy connections with those who helped them make their marks.
"It's true that already successful people have an easier time doing
new things," he allows in the book.
(Reporting by Sarah McBride, editing by Peter Henderson)
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