For years, I've been reading different kinds of books. Until now, I've never made any effort to document my learnings from these books. Perhaps it stems from a sense of possessing an imposter syndrome - "Why would anyone bother to read what I write?"
Every January, I, like most other souls, make grand plans for the things I will do, the books I will read, the work I will do etc. And on most occasions, I end up not following through. So why should this time be any different? Well, the hope is that human beings evolve, they get better at tracking different goals and objectives. And I believe that the glass is always half-full and not half-empty. If I can achieve even a few of my targets, I will take that as a win. And I've done this before. Like in 2020, or last year- when I exercised in some form for 300+ days.
This year, my aim is to read books voraciously. And document my takeaways. Perhaps someone may find it useful! Like it happened with the authors of the first book I chose to read in 2024.
Zero to One stems from a course that the legendary Peter Thiel taught at Stanford University in 2012. One of his students, Blake Masters took detailed class notes, which circulated far beyond the campus. Thiel and Masters then worked together to revise the notes for a wider audience. And as Thiel so beautifully expresses it "There's no reason why the future should happen only at Stanford, or in college, or in Silicon Valley." This book was published in 2014. It is safe to say that in the decade since its publishing, the future has happened not only at Stanford, or in college, or in Silicon Valley! Thiel and the legendary PayPal Mafia have inspired, invested in, and spawned some of the world's largest tech firms.
So what did I learn from this book and Thiel's journey?
What people call serendipity sometimes is just having your eyes open.
Fundamentally, what I found intriguing was that this book came about because a student took notes in a classroom. Those notes found their way to a legendary entrepreneur who happened to be teaching that class, and voila- a book was born! I always tell my teammates at GameChanger Law Advisors to keep their eyes and ears open and to take notes- whether it is on client calls or during webinars and conferences! I hope that Masters' story will inspire them to probably meet a legendary entrepreneur somewhere and that their notes may give birth to an informative book somewhere down the line! Life is Rich!
Lawyers can be successful entrepreneurs, but it is always complicated!
I've practiced law for 20+ years now. During this time, I've encountered my fair share of clients/friends/sceptics who believe lawyers lack the "business smarts". To them, the story of Thiel should serve as a reminder that lawyers can and do make successful entrepreneurs. But, ironically, the same lawyer-turned-entrepreneur has, over the course of his chequered career, been accused of dodging the rules, skirting the law, cheating his business partners, and abandoning his friends. His political views, his investment in Facebook , and its subsequent complicated evolution over the last 2 decades, and his support for Donald Trump has added further complex layers to his personality. As Anna Wiener asked in her October 2021 piece for The New Yorker "Does Thiel’s world view make any sense? Critics see a tangle of unprincipled hypocrisies—intellectual ground cover for banal shamelessness and techy self-interest. Admirers perceive depth, and an enthralling, novel framework for the future."
Does Thiel's financial success make him a role model for others, particularly lawyers? Maybe. But then again, one can unpack several other lessons from Thiel's complicated journey. What constitutes success can look very different for different lawyers. Someone may be a great corporate lawyer, but be terrible at building startups. Someone may be legally trained, but seeks out challenges in walks of life other than the law, and can also end up bending the law or contributing to morally indefensible business practices. Thiel spent only 7 months at his law firm job, which makes me wonder if his law school training and law firm journey had any influence on his on his ability to build PayPal !
Coming back to Zero to One, despite the complicated backstory of its author, the book offers extremely useful insights for those looking to build ventures in any area. Here are some that I could relate to, having now toiled for 12+ years in building a law firm.
"Distribution may not matter in fictional worlds, but it matters in ours. Customers will not come just because you build it. You have to make that happen, and it's harder than it looks.
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I must confess that I am also guilty of having harbored what Thiel describes as the Field of Dreams conceit in Silicon Valley, where engineers are biased towards building cool stuff rather than selling it.
The lawyer's version of the above construct follows: Over time, I've come to realise that merely possessing great technical knowledge of the law in various practice areas and industries is not enough. A lawyer or a law firm must be able to articulate his/her/its point of difference forcefully and that is easier said than done. It has taken years for me to gradually open up on platforms such as LinkedIn , and my dear friends Prantik Mazumdar and Rachit Dayal have always argued that I could do a lot more than I do even now! As Thiel argues in the book "If you've invented something new but you haven't invented an effective way to sell it, you have a bad business-no matter how good the product."
"But even if strong AI is a real possibility rather than an imponderable mystery, it won't happen anytime soon: replacement by computers is a worry for the 22nd century"
Remember, Zero to One was published a decade ago. Over the last year or so, since the emergence of Generative AI, one can sense greater anxiety across a whole range of white-collar professions, including the legal profession, on what the implications of "strong AI" are for their futures. Is Thiel's prediction about this being a worry for the 22nd century correct? Did he underestimate its disruptive potential? Or is he underplaying its disruptive potential, given his strategic interests in a whole range of technology businesses?
Or, can Thiel be trusted when he states that "the most valuable companies in the future won't ask what problems can be solved with computers alone. Instead they'll ask: how can computers help humans solve hard problems?"
We are 76 years away from the 22nd century, and as I write this piece in the aftermath of the Sam Altman fiasco, I get the feeling that "strong AI" may be upon us earlier than Thiel has anticipated it. And yet, I am no wiser in guessing whether it will lead to doomsday or whether there is still room for sane people to build a vastly better world in the decades ahead.
Social entrepreneurs aim to combine the best of both worlds and "do well by doing good". Usually they end up doing neither.
Having worked with so many intelligent social entrepreneurs and impact investors over the past decade, I can safely say that Thiel has got this one wrong. Even if the world may be divided about whether an organization can "do well by doing good", there are enough examples in this world of organizations having atleast "done well" and those that have atleast "done good", and the overall result is that there is as of 2024, a reasonably well-entrenched social entrepreneurship ecosystem that is contributing to solving several of the world's most challenging problems.
Above all, don't overestimate your own power as an individual. The single greatest danger for a founder is to become so certain of his myth that he loses his mind.
The penultimate chapter of Zero to One is titled "The Founder's Paradox". It is here that I find myself agreeing with Thiel when he makes some forceful arguments as to why it's more powerful but at the same time more dangerous for a company to be led by a distinctive individual instead of an interchangeable manager.
Thiel cites examples of various founders, including Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Sean Parker to say that we alternately worship and despise technology founders just as we do celebrities. Thiel argues that "Founders are important not because they are the only ones whose work has value, but rather because a great founder can bring out the best work from everybody at his company. That we need individual founders in all their peculiarity does not mean that we are called to worship Ayn Randian "prime movers" who claim to be independent of everybody around them.. To believe yourself invested with divine self-sufficiency is not the mark of a strong individual, but of a person who has mistaken the crowd's worship-or jeering-for the truth."
To conclude, the complicated backstory of Thiel made Zero to One a fascinating read for me. Even if I read it 10 years after it was originally published, it certainly made me think deeply about the world as it stands today!
Until the next book review, I hope that I've left readers with enough fodder for thought! Do feel free to share your comments, feedback, thoughts, either by writing to me at amrut@gamechangerlaw.com or by leaving a note in the comments section!
