Peter Thiel's Zero to One, A Review
Notes on Startups or how to Build the Future
I. Introduction
The subtitle of Peter Thiel’s book, Zero to One, is: Notes on Startups or How to Build the Future. The suggestion may be that there are some who build startups without casting a long glance at the future; and there are those who dream about the future, but who lack the practical knowledge required to build the launch point. Notes sound boring; building the future arrests the part of us that longs for greatness. And fittingly, the book soars to theoretical heights on one hand, and comes back down to mundane (but necessary) topics on the other.
At any rate, the book is paradoxical and deliberately so. Compare a moment from the preface with the last line of the book.
Preface: “humans are distinguished from other species by our ability to work miracles. We call these miracles technology.” (pg 2)
Final Page: “Only by seeing our world anew, as fresh and strange as it was to the ancients who saw it first, can we both re-create it and preserve it for the future.” (pg 195)
The first quotation makes a claim about what kind of animal a human being is; we are not rational animals nor political animals, but, Thiel claims, we are distinguished by our capacity to create new technology. Much as this sounds like a profound departure from a classical way of thinking, there is a certain plausibility to it. Is man really thinkable without technology? Without using some sort of tool to kill animals; without being able to manipulate the animals skin and bones into helpful implements; without fire? When Socrates begins his city in speech in the Republic, he doesn’t begin at the beginning, rather, after speaking of the need for the provision of food, he speaks of the need for housing and clothing (369d). And such needs aren’t artificial; or we might say that the fulfillment of these needs through technology provides the indispensable foundation upon which higher activities, like politics, philosophy, and war, can be carried out.
The classical critique of the claim that man is a technological animal would flow out of the idea that technology needs to be subordinate to the good of a political regime. As Neil Postman notes in the introduction to Technopoly, “uncontrolled growth of technology destroys the vital sources of our humanity. It creates a culture without moral foundation” (xii). As an example, you can look at Mark Regnerus’ work, that shows a causal link between the availability of birth control on one hand, and the emergence of internet pornography on the other, as fundamentally altering the marriage and family landscape of the Western world. Thus, what Strauss calls “ancient technological conservatism” could be summarized as: political control should be held over what innovations are introduced into a peoples way of life; the innovations that assist in the flourishing of that way should be allowed in, and no others.
With that said, Thiel is undoubtedly aware of such criticisms (perhaps he even partially agrees with some of them). Not only does he quote Theodore Kaczynski’s anti-technological work in his book (pgs 94-96), but he is also well acquainted with Strauss. The last line of his book that I quoted above resembles the following quotation from Strauss’ “What is Political Philosophy?,” essay: “the classical philosophers see the political things with a freshness and directness which have never been equaled” (WIPP pg 27).
It is an ism or dogma of the Straussian school that classical philosophy seeks to understand or contemplate things as they are whereas modern philosophy seeks to be effectual or to change the world. Thiel, a man who habitually tries to steer outside of dogmatic thinking, seeks some kind of synthesis between these two views: he wishes to have the unencumbered sight of the classics so that nature can be conquered with modern technology. Such a synthesis seems impossible; but precisely because I’m inclined against its possibility, let’s think alongside Thiel and see what we find.
After all, this book is “an exercise in thinking” (pg 11).
II. Indefinite Thinking or Power without Vision
One major problem that Thiel consistently draws our attention to is the failure of modern man to identify clear goals. As he suggests, we fail to study the endgame; and having no definite direction, we no longer get anywhere.
He shows us to be good Hobbesians: knowing that there is no greatest good, we find ourselves storing up as much money or power as we can in reserve so that we can “keep our options open.” Indeed he suggests that our educational system tells us to relentlessly pursue “many sided mediocrity” which we flatter ourselves in calling it “well-rounded” (pg 62).
“By the time a student gets to college, he’s spent a decade curating a bewilderingly diverse resume to prepare for a completely unknowable future. Come what may, he’s ready—for nothing in particular.”
No singleness or clarity of purpose; no planning; just anxious aimless conformity.
The problem of indefiniteness extends to:
Finance. When a successful entrepreneur sells a company they give the money to a bank who put it in the diversified portfolios of institutional investors who put the money in stocks. Waiting to be used.
Politics. We are intensely concerned with the public thinks every moment. But the government can no longer coordinate the production of novel atomic weaponry or lunar landings. It is reduced to making transfer payments.
Philosophy. Two thinkers that some consider important, Rawls and Nozick, both focus on process rather than on concrete ideas about the good society.
Life. Bio-technology has stagnated. Whereas conquistadors had sought the fountain of youth; and conquistadors of the mind like Francis Bacon and Robert Boyle sought to extend human life, we have “given up the search for secrets about longevity” (pg 74).
III. Blindness: Progress and Convention
Whereas the classical political philosophers speak of the opposition between nomos and physis, or between convention and nature, Thiel seems to intentionally create a new dichotomy: progress and convention. Conventions or customary ways of acting and thinking block our access to what are called “secrets,” and these unlock progress. At least four different social trends conspire to dissipate our self-confidence or sense that WE can be the one to discover a new secret that will change the world.
Incrementalism. Proceed one small step at a time, step by step, grade by grade, doing exactly what is expected of you. Such thinking can’t open up new frontiers.
Risk aversion. “People are scared of secrets because they are scared of being wrong” (pg 98). When others think you are wrong, they stay away from you.
Complacency. “Why search for a new secret when you can comfortably collect rents on what has already been done?” And we might add the special sense of complacency or mental vanity that is engendered by having a mental prosthetic in your pocket.
Flatness. In other words, globalization and the sense the world is a homogenous place where the rest of the world catches up to the end point which is the United States where it is right now.
We can see in outline Thiel’s account of the virtues of the excellent man. Someone who is courageous enough to take great leaps and who dares to dream. Someone who is courageous enough to think outside the mainlines of thought who is willing to pay a social price for his daringness of thought. This person must also demand great things of himself and not be satisfied by knowing what everybody else “knows.” Finally, this person has be to concerned, not with helping the rest of the world copy Western advances (globalization), but with vertical progress: creating something new—going from zero to one.
One egregious example of many people having their thought wrecked by convention was the clean tech government subsidy bubble that popped most loudly when Solyndra went down.
There were many cheerleaders of that clean energy moment, but, as Thiel warns: “Whatever is good enough to receive applause from all audiences can only be conventional” (pg 165). With the applause so loud, most clean energy business start-ups expected their work to succeed automatically; but one of the few successes was Elon Musk’s Tesla. Thiel points out that Musk was one of the few who had a clear plan and that these applause didn’t distract his attention to detail and so progress was made. Bad luck happens, but it is usually the result of bad planning.
We are bad at planning and we are so conventional that we don’t look for the problems that no one else is trying to solve. Which is part of why successful founders are so rare and why they often appear to us as baffling or strange. Extreme personality traits might give one a different vantage point.
With his discussion of founders, Thiel quietly lets on that nature doesn’t make all of us founders. Yes, we should do everything we can in our lives to reach our own inborne natural ceilings; we should make definite plans for the future; but how many of us can be Howard Hughes? To build radios and motorcycles as a boy, to star in many successful Hollywood films, and to set records in aviation for the fastest flight around the world? He was so unconcerned with applause that he didn’t bother to show up and receive a Congressional Gold Medal. Can you train yourself to be this way? Probably not.
IV. Concluding Thoughts
Thiel ends the book talking about the Singularity or the possibility of technology that completely surpasses our present understanding of things and which transforms the world. This talk ignites great hopes in us. The book seduces us into thinking we might be the ones to see nature’s secrets for ourselves and in so doing, help the world make progress. But, what are we supposed to be moving toward?
We are told that we can “re-make” the world and make it “better”…but what is the content of the better here?
Thiel could reply: But aren’t you just like Nathaniel Hawthorne’s character in the short story “Fire Worship”? This character laments the replacement of the open fireplace with the cheerless stove. He goes as far as to say that the unintended consequences of this replacement will eventually lead the American people away from God and love of their country. And yet…
…the man who said these very things, also said: “I, to my shame, have put up stoves in kitchen, and parlor, and chamber.”
This essay has taken up what we might call the theoretical side of Thiel’s thinking. Soon, I’ll write up a few thoughts on how his book has helped me sharpen my vision for what MCC should like and how to actualize its physical existence.