Notes on startups: why building something genuinely new — going from zero to one — beats copying what already works.
Books mentioned in Zero to One (8)
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: “Tolstoy opens Anna Karenina by observing: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.””
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: “Consider the opening line from Romeo and Juliet: “Two households, both alike in dignity.””
Hamlet by William Shakespeare: “Hence Hamlet: Exposing what is mortal and unsure To all that fortune, death, and danger dare, Even for an eggshell.”
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell: “Malcolm Gladwell, a successful author who writes about successful people, declares in Outliers that success results from a “patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages.””
The Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien: “As Tolkien wrote in The Lord of the Rings: The Road goes ever on and on Down from the door where it began.”
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson: “We all loved science fiction: Cryptonomicon was required reading, and we preferred the capitalist Star Wars to the communist Star Trek.”
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams: “The geek classic The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy even explains the founding of our planet as a reaction against salesmen.”
A Theory of Justice by John Rawls: “Rawls begins A Theory of Justice with the famous “veil of ignorance””