This book show us how one builds companies that create something new. It came about when Peter Thiel was teaching a course in Stanford in 2012. One of his students, Blake Masters, took notes and these were then adapted into this book.
Copying something is easier than creating something new. Adding more of the same takes us from 1 to n but by creating something new, we go from 0 to 1.
Wow! This is the best little summary of my book I've ever seen. https://t.co/dcLlWV6uzY
— Derek Sivers (@sivers) June 2, 2016
Walt Disney was born on the 5th December 1901 in Chicago but his first memories are of the farm that his family lived on in Missouri, as his family moved there when he was young. Walter was the youngest of four sons (Herbert born 1888, Raymond born 1890, Roy born 1893, Walt born 1901) and he had a younger sister too (Ruth born 1903).
The social media giant Twitter had humble beginnings. It was formed by four co-founders: Ev, Noah, Jack and Biz.
Theo Paphitis’ life has been a true rags-to-riches story. Much of his success can be attributed to his twelve business success rules.
So I recently listened to a podcast where Richard Reed was interviewed. Richard founded the Innocent Drinks Company, which went from a fledgling start-up to being a huge smoothie-making business sold to Coca-Cola for about £500 million, but it was his story about how the company came about that I found particularly motivating and inspirational and I’d like to share that story with you today.
Steve Jobs is a man who revolutionised six different industries (PCs, Animated films, Music, Phones, Tablets and digital publishing). This is the story of his life and how he achieved that remarkable feat.
Steven Paul Jobs was born on the 24th February 1955 in San Francisco. He was adopted and this was something he was aware of from a young age. Jobs claimed this made him feel independent but not abandoned. He treated his adoptive parents as his “real” parents.
Jack Ma is an English teacher turned Internet entrepreneur who founded the Chinese e-commerce company called Alibaba. It is the Amazon of the East, but it has more impact on the retail sector of China than its rival has in the USA. More people make purchases on Alibaba’s websites per year then there are people in the United States of America.
Alibaba is a dominant force today thanks to what Jack Ma describes as the “Iron Triangle” – strength in e-commerce, logistics and finance.
Born on a farm in Michigan on 30th July 1863, as a youngster seeing all the hard, manual work taking place on the farm drew Henry Ford into mechanics. He got an apprenticeship at a machine shop and after completing it, concentrated on designing and developing a steam engine that could pull a plough or wagon. It was only when he realised that people were more interested in travelling on the roads than working on farms that he switched his focus to road cars.