/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20233428]

Take the Thiel pill, anon. Seek the unsought. Create what does not yet exist. Form a monopoly. Avoid competition at all costs. And do not EVER copy thy neighbor.

[Anonymous No.20233431]

>>20233428
Live a horrible life style and contract AIDs and than spread it to little boys because you're a pederast

[Anonymous No.20233434]

>>20233428
>makes a generic data visualizer and competes solely by only hiring citizens so they can be used for government contracts
Really following his own advice there

[Anonymous No.20234614]

>>20233428
>Form a monopoly. Avoid competition at all costs.
I know this is good advice for psychos who want to build corporate empires, but monopolies are dead weight for everyone else. As le tech entrepreneur you should want a monopoly, but very few other people should want you to have one.

[Anonymous No.20234755]

>>20234614
>good advice for psychos who want to build corporate empires
It is also good advice for small entrepreneurs. The point is to find markets that do not yet exist or find a small and niche enough market that a small entrepreneur can make money. If a small entrepreneur is competing in a large market, he will lose his business because there are bigger businesses with deeper pockets that can dominate the market.

>but monopolies are dead weight for everyone else
Do not get it wrong. Bad monopolies deserve their bad name. But no one should be interested in bad monopolies in the first place. If a bad monopoly does come to existence, simply do not buy its products, incentivize the creation of new businesses with similar products, and expedite its elimination. Good monopolies, the types of monopolies that turn profits into a positive-feedback loop of better quality, cheaper prices, and innovation are what everyone should be interested in.

If monopolies form when markets do not yet exist, it is by definition, helpful for everyone who need it to exist precisely because the market did not exist in the first place.

On the other side of the spectrum, competition is dead weight for every business. Competition competes the profits away. And a business that cannot turn a profit is a dying a business. And a dead businesses (that could have been useful) is unable to help anyone at all. But competition goes beyond profits—it punches the founder and slaps the employees. Because competition competes the profits away, the founder and the employees are unable to support themselves. That is one factor on how unfair wages arise: when competition competes the profit margins away, founders are unable to build a great business that helps everyone and employees will only be earning minimum wage as opposed from making a strong salary from a profitable monopoly.

[Anonymous No.20234848]

>>20233428
How does it compare to the Inventor's Dilemma? They seem to basically have the same idea, except Christensen is more looking at Industries as a whole

[Anonymous No.20234927]

>>20234848
The Innovator's Dilemma is a good book that works well with Zero to One. You could consider the Innovator's Dilemma as "tactical" and Zero to One as "Strategic." For example, Christensen places emphasis on the first-mover advantage (tactical), while Thiel places emphasis on the last-mover advantage (strategic). Generally, it is important to have both. But Thiel's idea of the last-mover advantage has lasting, and perhaps infinite, effects when it comes to building a business. The first-mover gets things started, but it's the last-mover that wins the game completely, and thus a monopoly business can enjoy decades stacked upon more decades of monopoly profits.

Christensen's S-Curve of Innovation is an important idea for what a business should invest in next, be it resources, finance, and labor. For example, a business that is investing in an idea at the beginning of an S-Curve will make a lot of money if it is successful; at the end of an S-Curve, the investment will go poorly because it is at a cusp of a disruptive discovery. However, I do think Thiel's idea of the last-mover skips straight to the end game of any technology: a permanent solution to a problem will make the most amount of money. The thing about Thiel's idea, however, is that it is close to impossible to find that permanent solution without the need of Christensen's idea of the S-Curve.

[Anonymous No.20234954]

>>20234927
Good post.
Ideally, although accomplishing it is easier said than done, starting a business you would move in the ground floor of some disruptive industry, and then let that mature into a monopoly: marrying the two approaches?

[Anonymous No.20235017]

>>20234954
>starting a business you would move in the ground floor of some disruptive industry, and then let that mature into a monopoly: marrying the two approaches?

At the start of a business, it is better to adopt Thiel's idea: go for a non-existent or extremely small niche market and dominate it because it is easier to dominate such a market than it is to start at a large market where everyone is "attempting to pick the same fruit." Once monopoly profits start rolling in, it is more efficient to start using Christensen's idea of the S-Curve because you now how monopoly profits that you can use to move into other investments outside your current market.

It will be harder for you to succeed if you start with Christensen's idea first because it requires massive upfront costs, such as resources, capital, and labor. Additionally, by starting at an already-existing market, you run the risk of being obsolete before you make your first breakthrough because there are businesses out there with deeper pockets that can outcompete you. So by starting with Thiel's idea first, you sidestep all of these problems because no one in their so-called "right mind" would want to towards a non-existent market, despite the fact that all new technologies are, by definition, non-existent at the start.

Bear in mind, however, Thiel's and Christensen's ideas apply for new, non-existent, strange, unique, contrarian, technologies and businesses. If you're looking for ways to get money without having the need to do new things (which carry enormous risks because new things by definition are new, untried, and untested), there are better books to read. These books are what most would consider "Hustle" books. Books such as the Millionaire Fastlane or Rich Dad Poor Dad. These books are considered hustle books because such books do not urge you to do non-existent things, they simply urge you to do things that are more likely to make you money for your individual self growth, that is until you meet competition.