Zero to One by Peter Thiel

Peter Thiel – Co-Founder of paypal and investor in Facebook has recently published a book on highly successful startsups, more specific game changing companies that innovate in Technology.

The Interview with Peter Thiel in the Podcast of Tim Ferriss made me more curious about him. Not only did the appeal of him grow after reading the Art of Learning, which I also discovered through the Tim Ferris podcast, a book that to a large part is about chess – a game in which Peter Thiel is an expert.

Peter Thiel mentioned in an article this October that the most influencing  book he ever read was the Sovereign Individual – A book about megapolitical political events happening through the lense of violence. It was written in 1997 and fortells the furture of internet including cryptocurrency(Bitcoins) and possibly being one of the reasons of Paypals first started. With a focus of creating a Cryptocurrency.

This book has as far as I have read brought some attention to the Monopoly side of business.

It does not focus much on the negative parts of it, although Thiel distances himself from it. Instead he says that where less competition is where the most value can be captured.

I am looking forward to writing more about this book.

Tim Ferriss and Peter Thiel

Tim Ferriss:

Entrepreneur, Investor, Author, Lifehacker and everything else.
The four hour work week helped me out from entrepreneurial isolation and helped expand my knowledge to understand that I could become proactive and deliberately choose how to live my life, in the face of those who says it is not possible.

Tim Ferriss has since The Four Hour Work Week grown into an investor and inspiring mentor for many entrepreneurs world wide.

Ferriss writes blog posts on his website http://fourhourworkweek.com/blog/ about a variety of themes and has also written several other books about nutrition/food and training.

He also has a Podcasts which I highly can recommend. He basically interviews people he admires or is interested in and put in some of his own thoughts in others.

I have found that in each one of the podcast interview a book – which I have read or heard about is being mentioned since a frequent question asked by Ferriss is something like: Which book has given most impact on your life?

The other day I saw on Ferriss´ Facebook page that he had an internview with Peter Thiel himself:

You can find that great 25-30 minute interview here: http://fourhourworkweek.com/2014/09/09/peter-thiel/?utm_content=buffer43938&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

I Recognized concepts of Peter Thiels thinking and made a quick google search on the book I thought they were derived from and… Voilá!! An article from Forbes:(http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinehoward/2014/09/10/peter-thiel-dont-wait-to-start-something-new/) the physical copy is coming in the end of september 2014.

In the Forbes-article/Interview the question of which book has been more influential for Thiel, and he respons with The Sovereign Individual (Touchstone, 1997), by James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg.

That book is the one I have been reading(last year, but it was stolen!) bought it to my father with my brother for christmas and have since summer rearead it

Mr. Thiel says as follows about it:

It is an unusual book that I read at a singular moment, just before starting PayPal. A lot of thinking about technology oscillates between two extremes: It’s either a big historical force acting over the long term or it’s a matter of short-term trends to bet on. The Sovereign Individual is different because it takes foresight seriously: If you think hard, you can understand and make plans for a future lasting 10, 20 years or more–and that’s how you have to think to be successful.

I find the sovereign individual to be a heavy book with an interesting perspective on a Mega-macro level in society based on the notion that the ability to excert Violence is the driving force of human history and therefor its future.

I might write a summary of this book later on.

Until then I will enjoy more talks of Tim Ferris and Peter Thiel and hopefully get my hands on his lates book Zero to One.

Summary of post:

• Tim Ferriss and Peter Thiel are two interesting people for inspiration and knowledge.
• Tim Ferriss has good books, podcasts and blog posts.
• The Sovereign Individual has affected one of the well known investors of today.