An interview and Q&A with billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel. In this interview Peter discusses extracts from his book Zero to One. Topics covered are monopolies and why you should not start a business in a competitive field, that there are still discoveries to be made and globalisation. This is followed by a Q&A with some thought provoking questions and intelligent, if sometimes contrarian, answers.
Video Segments:
0:00 Introduction
5:09 How not to teach entrepreneurship
7:05 Zero to One
8:43 Competition v Monopoly
15:24 Secrets
19:03 Two modes of progression
22:48 Start of Q&A
23:26 Zero to One transitions we should not be making? Strategy in developing technology? Gresham’s law in entrepreneurship?
24:48 Answers
32:48 How to target innovators who lack courage? Most interesting answers to interview questions? Any secrets left in the info tech field?
34:46 Answers
39:10 If Zero to One was a religion, what would be its core values? What’s holding back the really big ideas in practical terms? How to get Europe to be more optimistic?
40:50 Answers
46:19 20 under 20 program? Value creation model applied to Lyft? Is legislation stopping entrepreneurial spirit?
48:12 Answers
Interview Date: September 26, 2014
Event: LSE Entrepreneurship public lecture
Supporting document: http://bit.ly/PeterLSE
Original Image Source:http://bit.ly/PThiel1
The great secret of our time is that there are still uncharted frontiers to explore and new inventions to create. In Zero to One, legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create those new things.
Thiel begins with the contrarian premise that we live in an age of technological stagnation, even if we’re too distracted by shiny mobile devices to notice. Information technology has improved rapidly, but there is no reason why progress should be limited to computers or Silicon Valley. Progress can be achieved in any industry or area of business. It comes from the most important skill that every leader must master: learning to think for yourself.
Doing what someone else already knows how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But when you do something new, you go from 0 to 1. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. Tomorrow’s champions will not win by competing ruthlessly in today’s marketplace. They will escape competition altogether, because their businesses will be unique.
Zero to One presents at once an optimistic view of the future of progress in America and a new way of thinking about innovation: it starts by learning to ask the questions that lead you to find value in unexpected places.
