Mommy, am I cult?

Thiel is an odd libertarian.

He uses Marx, and compares him to Shakespeare. He criticizes the typical Silicon Valley libertarian... and Athlas Shrugged. His political views seem to come from his years of experience, not whatever political indoctrination is taught at college. But there is not much political theory at this book. Instead, this seems to revolve around technology, and its importance to change the world. Thiel explains that tech is much than IT or engineering, and how founders should act to be successful tech entrepreneurs.

Reading Thiel is like snooping into the mind of someone who sees patterns that no one else see. He compares Lady Gaga to founders when he talks about self-branding. He called Elon Musk a great salesman (oh, how many nerds will revolt reading this.) He talks about Steve Jobs or Bill Gates without falling to fanboy-ism (instead, he sees right through it). He will describe, with details, why some public offices usually suck, without any political speech. He is a no BS man. What else to expect from someone who was a chess master at age 21? Nothing but ruthless logic. My favorite chapter was the one about sales:

I still wonder how many of his advices are applicable to entrepreneurs who live outside a startup hotbed, but calling Zero to One a "business" advice book would only describe 40% of the book. All around, it's a philosophy around man and machine, development, pessimism and optimism, environment and sales. All without the BS.