Citas de Simon Dunlop de “Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future”, Peter Thiel

irst, only invest in companies that have the potential to return the value of the entire fund.

This is a scary rule, because it eliminates the vast majority of possible investments.

A business with a good definite plan will always be underrated in a world where people see the future as random.

t begins by rejecting the unjust tyranny of Chance. You are not a lottery ticket

. It’s much better to be the last mover—that is, to make the last great development in a specific market and enjoy years or even decades of monopoly profits. The way to do that is to dominate a small niche and scale up from there, toward your ambitious long-term vision.

obs saw that you can change the world through careful planning, not by listening to focus group feedback or copying others’ successes.
Long

s you craft a plan to expand to adjacent markets,

don’t disrupt: avoid competition as much as possible.

very startup is small at the start. Every monopoly dominates a large share of its market. Therefore, every startup should start with a very small market.

2. Network Effects
Network effects make a product more useful as more people use it. For example, if all your friends are on Facebook, it makes sense for you to join Facebook, too. Unilaterally choosing a different social network would only make you an eccentric

good startup should have the potential for great scale built into its first design

effects, and technology in some combination define a monopoly; but to get them to work, you need to choose your market carefully and expand deliberately.

Every monopoly is unique, but they usually share some combination of the following characteristics: proprietary technology, network effects, economies of scale, and branding

s a good rule of thumb, proprietary technology must be at least 10 times better than its closest substitute in some important dimension to lead to a real monopolistic advantage.

Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honor’s at the stake.
For Hamlet, greatness means willingness to fight for reasons as thin as an eggshell: anyone would fight for things that matter; true heroes take their personal honor so seriously they will fight for things that don’t matter. This twisted logic is part of human nature, but it’s disastrous in business. If you can recognize competition as a destructive force instead of a sign of value, you’re already more sane than most

If you focus on near-term growth above all else, you miss the most important question you should be asking: will this business still be around a decade from now? Numbers alone won’t tell you the answer; instead you must think critically about the qualitative characteristics of your business

THE IDEOLOGY OF COMPETITION
CREATIVE MONOPOLY means new products that benefit everybody and sustainable profits for the creator. Competition means no profits for anybody, no meaningful differentiation, and a struggle for survival

All Rhodes Scholars had a great future in their past.

The confusion comes from a universal bias for describing market conditions in self-serving ways: both monopolists and competitors are incentivized to bend the truth.

Non-monopolists tell the opposite lie: “we’re in a league of our own.” Entrepreneurs are always biased to understate the scale of competition, but that is the biggest mistake a startup can make. The fatal temptation is to describe your market extremely narrowly so that you dominate it by definition.