Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

Good read for anyone involved with or contemplating involvement with a small business. Despite its flaws, the book raises important questions that any entrepreneur or anyone working with one should be asking. Your answers don't have to align with Peter's - I found his analysis simplistic and misleading in many cases - but the questions are absolutely worth asking.

“Zero to One” tries to boil down many complex situations to simple categories and choices. Entire continents (Europe) and most business models (anything “incremental”) are dismissed. I realize it makes for a shorter, crisper book, but I am put off by such obvious under-appreciation of subtlety and nuance. The author is weakest when he dips into pop psychology with generalizations about optimism/pessimism of entire nations or psych profiles of startup founders. When Peter sticks closer to his area of expertise, however, interesting material abounds: the concept of “secrets” about nature or people, the characteristics of monopolies, the observations about Power Law as it applies to individuals or markets or distribution, the rundown of startup basics (team, board, hiring, the seven viability questions), the admonitions about sales and distribution.