Summary: Zero to One by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters

Note: This is an audiobook summary of the following book:

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters

About:

The book, Zero to One, was inspired by a collection of lectures delivered by Peter Thiel during his teaching years at Stanford. Along with co-author (and former student) Blake Masters, Thiel has put together a hard-hitting set of standards for entrepreneurs, start-ups, and thought-leaders to carefully consider when building the “next big thing” of the future.

Quite frankly, certain sections of the book are so ridiculously well put together that one just sits there and thinks after hearing them. Chapter after chapter, Thiel gives example after example of how to successfully build the future.

But why listen to Thiel? Well, Peter Thiel has played a role in partnering with, inspiring, and/or investing in some of the most successful tech entrepreneurs in the United States (and probably the world) including:

• Elon Musk - who founded SpaceX and co-founded Tesla Motors
• Reid Hoffman - who co-founded LinkedIn
• Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim - who together founded YouTube
• Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons - who founded Yelp
• David Sacks - who co-founded Yammer
• Himself, Peter Thiel - who founded PayPal and Palantir

Oh, and by the way - all of the above named companies are worth at least one billion dollars each. That’s a serious chunk of change. Listening to Zero to One is sort of like taking a peek into the mind of one of the most successful multi-billionaire investors alive today. In these FlashNotes, we’ll get into the top 10-12 key takeaways from the book, including:

• The “do's and don'ts” of start-ups
• What to focus on when building a start-up
• Insights on building a billion-dollar start-up that stands the test of time

And much, much more.