I recently reread the book “Zero to One — Notes on startups, or How to build the future” by Peter Thiel — PayPal cofounder.

Why reread?

My first time reading Zero to One was in 2015. I remembered it so vividly because it was recommended by my CEO. I was wondering why amidst his busy schedule, he had time to read this book. It must be damn good so I gave it a try. I hadn’t been working in a startup for long that time so I didn’t appreciate or relate to this book. This time round, my company had a super tiny book corner, I decided to reread it.

One question in the book struck me: What is an important truth that only few people agree with you?

Peter brought this question up to validate how good a candidate is. There are 2 points in this question: (1) truth and (2) agreed by few people. If you take this question literally, meaning you search among all the “truth” you believe and think how many have agreed with you, you wouldn’t be able to answer it. Because of 2 reasons. First, truth is relative. Truth is just an expression of perception. Second, agreed by few people. It depends on how many people you discuss or reach out to validate that “truth”. I would read this question as: What is a problem you believe in that is worth solving but people around you don’t have the gut to fix it? To be honest, people believe it or not, I don’t care. To me, a validation of belief is the gut to fix it.

What should be my answer? I have few observations, but I don’t have the gut to fix it as of now (lol):

• Accounting is a very high turnover field. After 1–2 years, 71% of employees would quit. Knowing or unknowing it, why a student take 3–4 year university course on the job? Is the reason that client’s data is messy and it requires a lot of manual work? Is it the data problem then? Why don’t we fix the data problem but instead, create a course to handle data problem.
• Vietnam needs a postal code system. What’s the pros and cons of this system that we haven’t implemented it so far? Ignoring all the politics issues.
• In this world, the startup world is booming. Big investors are throwing a lot money to startups. I question the idea of throwing money? There are lesser and lesser investors who believe in making a difference. Most of them just want their profit back. That forces meaningless competition because companies just want to show a quick grow and grab the money fast. What can we do to change this mindset? It will definitely result in another startup burst.

Competition vs Creative Monopoly?

According to the book, every startup should try to be creative monopoly. A monopoly in this sense would have: branding, economies of scale, network of effects and technology.

Why are people unsatisfied?

• Goals that require minimum effort and result in satisfaction — EASY
• Goals that require more effort and result in satisfaction — POSSIBLE
• Goals that require a lot of effort and result in satisfaction - IMPOSSIBLE

According to indefinite optimism, most of no. 2 are solved, left with no.1 and 3. However, for no.3, just need to believe that it can be solved -> What’s a valuable company that nobody is building?