In today’s episode, Shawn O’Malley (@Shawn_OMalley_) goes through the best-selling book Zero to One by the prolific investor Peter Thiel, who’s best known for co-founding PayPal and Palantir and for being the first outside investor in Facebook. Thiel is a highly contrarian thinker, and the book organizes his notes from his time at Stanford lecturing to the next generation of Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurs. You’ll learn Peter Thiel’s favorite question to ask in interviews, the difference between horizontal and vertical progress, how the Tech Bubble changed Silicon Valley, why Peter Thiel actually likes monopolies, what investors get wrong about competition, how the Pareto Principle applies to the venture capital industry, plus so much more!

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IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN 00:00 - Intro 06:06 - What Peter Thiel’s favorite interview question is 09:42 - What the difference is between horizontal and vertical progress 11:41 - Why Thiel thinks that technological progress has stagnated since the 1970s 17:43 - How Thiel took advantage of the Dot-Com Bubble to scale PayPal 19:57 - How the Dot-Com Bubble changed the culture of Silicon Valley and the goals of its founders 23:22 - Why Peter Thiel encourages funders to build a monopoly in specific niches 26:34 - How competition destroys profits 34:50 - Which types of monopolies are good for society 41:10 - What the Pareto Principle means for the venture capital industry And much, much more!

*Disclaimer: Slight timestamp discrepancies may occur due to podcast platform differences.

BOOKS AND RESOURCES

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Peter Thiel's book, Zero to One.

Check out the Podcast review of Peter Thiel’s Zero to One on We Study Billionaires | YouTube Video.

Check out the Executive summary of Zero to One by Preston Pysh and Stig Brodersen.

Clayton Christensen's book, The Innovator’s Dilemma.

Nassim Taleb's book, The Black Swan.

Check out the books mentioned in the podcast here.

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