If a business strives to improve on what's already been done, they make horizontal progress. Shifting focus means viewing progress in two different ways. He's also run a course on startups at Stanford, with the primary goal of teaching students to think differently, see a future that's theirs to create, and build businesses that no one else has envisioned.

True to this aim, he started the Thiel Fellowship, which encourages youth to put 'learning before schooling.' The objective is to motivate youth to advance technological progress and to apply long-term thinking to what they do. He believes startups need to harness the potential and power of technological progress to build a better future. And his goal isn't just to zero-in on making a profit. Thiel has a clear understanding of what it takes to build a successful tech-based business. However, Thiel isn't just an entrepreneur he's also a renowned venture capitalist. They're collectively known as the 'PayPal mafia,' given their incredible success and monopoly over their target markets. Thiel's success is contagious, and some of the early members of his PayPal team, went on to create billion-dollar companies, such as LinkedIn, Yelp, and YouTube.

He co-founded the company, which went public in 2002, and was later sold to eBay for 1.5 billion dollars. If you've ever used PayPal, you have Thiel to thank for this. Peter Thiel believes that instead of fine-tuning what's already been done, we need to focus on what hasn't been done before. Zero to One, by renowned venture capitalist and entrepreneur Peter Thiel, interrogates what valuable and innovative businesses are missing from the current landscape. 'What valuable company is nobody building?'

Zero to one by peter thiel