from zero to one

Some of my favorite extracts from the book are:

1.It is better to risk boldness than triviality.

2.A bad plan is better than no plan.

3.Competitive markets destroy profits.

4.Sales matters just as much as product.

Competition is for losers“If you can recognize competition as a destructive force instead of a sign of value, you’re already more sane than most”Peter shows us a good example of the brutal competition: 

while U.S. airlines serve millions of passengers and create hundreds of billions of dollars of value each year, they make only 37 cents per passenger trip. On the other hand, Google has 100 timeshigher profit margin than all airline industry.

y,ou may argue that monopolies are bad, but this is true only in a world where nothing changes. In our world it’s possible to invent new & better things. Creative monopolists give customers more choices by adding entirely new categories of products. Microsoft had a huge monopoly in operating systems. At the same time,Apple’s iOS & Google’s Android emerged and overtook operating system dominance.

Business vs startup

When Twitter went public in 2013, it was valued at $24B — 12 times higher than Times market cap. Twitter was losing money while Times earned $133M the same year. Why do startups have such big valuations?

The answer is: cash flow. It is different between high-growth startups and low-growth businesses. Startups would usually be profitable in the future. Startup’s main metric is growth.