From 0 to 1: unlocking the secrets of business and the future

Chapter 4 Preface
Every moment in the business world is never repeated.The next Bill Gates won't build an operating system, the next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won't build a search engine, and the next Mark Zuckerberg won't build a social network .If you copy what these people do, you are not learning from them.

Of course, it is easier to copy someone else's model than to create something new.Doing what everyone knows how to do just changes the world from 1 to n, adding many similar things.But every time we create something new, it changes the world from 0 to 1.The act of innovation is unique, as is the moment at which innovation occurs, and as a result novelty is born.

American companies, if they don't invest in hard innovation, will fail in the future, no matter how much money they make now.What if we tweaked our existing business to take everything it can give us?As unlikely as it sounds, the answer appears to be worse than the 2008 crisis.Today's "best ways" can lead us down dead ends, and the best paths are new, untried paths.

In a world of enormous governance systems, both private and public, seeking new avenues is like hoping for a miracle.In fact, it's so frustrating that American business enterprises need thousands of miracles to be successful, except for one important thing: Humans are different from other species because they Has the ability to perform miracles.We call these miracles technology.

Technology is amazing because it allows us to do more with less and take our basic abilities to a new level.Other animals are driven by instinct to build beehives, etc., but only humans can create new things and come up with new methods.What humans decide to build is not based on the basic options given to humans by nature, but by creating new technologies and rewriting the history of the world.It's basic common sense we teach second graders, but it's all too easy to forget in a world of repeating what's already been done.

"From 0 to 1" is about how to create innovative companies, mainly based on my experience as the founder of PayPal and Palantir (Palantir), as well as investors in hundreds of startups such as Facebook and SpaceX Just write it.While there are many patterns I've noticed and covered in the book, this book is by no means a recipe for success.Entrepreneurship cheats do not exist, because any innovation is novel and unique, and it is impossible for any authority to specify how to innovate.In fact, one of the most important patterns I've noticed is that successful people find value in unexpected places, and they follow fundamentals, not recipes.

This book stems from a class I taught at Stanford University in 2012 on entrepreneurship.College students may be good at a few professional skills, but many never learn how to apply those skills in the wider world.My main purpose of teaching this course is to help students go beyond the path set by academic majors and create a broad future.One of my students, Blake Masters, took detailed notes that were circulated both on and off campus.In "From 0 to 1", I worked with him to revise the notes for a wider audience.I believe that the future of innovation will not be limited to Stanford University or Silicon Valley.

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