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I think it's one of the best business books I've ever read. I'd rank it about second, right below The Four Steps To The Epiphany. I picked it up off a shelf at Barnes & Noble the day after it came out, sat down in the cafe, and nearly read the entire book in one sitting. Went home, finished it, and then promptly started reading it a second time the next day. After that, I read it a third time. I plan to read it again. Yeah, it's that good. Now, that said, I am an unabashed Peter Thiel fanboy, so you may think that this is just my bias showing through. But I don't think so. I think Thiel hits on some very profound and significant insights in this book. It's not a manual or anything close to a TFSTTE style "paint by numbers" guide, but the seven questions that he presents in the chapter on Cleantech make a very solid framework for evaluating your own ventures, IMO. The only caveat I'll offer is this: I don't presume to disagree with Thiel about anything, and there's nothing in the book where I'd say I think he's wrong in any objective sense. But I do think there are places where he glosses over some nuance and opts for the more hyperbolic presentation of an idea, in a way that can make certain bits seem self-contradictory. He also comes off a slightly dismissive of the "lean startup" approach, seemingly because he sees evolutionary processes as only capable of creating incremental advances, as opposed to significant new creations. This is as close as I get to disagreeing with him, as I don't think there's anything about being a "lean startup" or doing Customer Development that mandates only working in the realm of incremental improvements. Now, as Steve Blank says, if you're inventing a cure for cancer, you don't need Customer Development. But there's some middle ground between "minor improvement in sharing cat pictures" and "a cure for cancer". This is where I think his more hyperbolic presentation and disregard of a certain level of nuance hurt the book a bit. Another point to pay attention to is that Thiel may use definitions in a way that doesn't fit your pre-existing mindset, or he may make certain assumptions. Probably the main place this stands out to me is in how he seems to equate "competition" with "perfect competition", again ignoring the middle-ground. There's a similar issue with the way he uses "monopoly" where he clearly doesn't (necessarily) mean "the absolute only supplier for X" but is rather referring to a company that has achieved a level of dominance that allows it to profit in a radically significant way (beyond other related players, for example). Overall, read it as a catalog of a number of Really Good Ideas for creating great startups, and I think you'll find it valuable. Don't assume any one thing he says is The Absolute Truth, but think about the gray area in between the poles. Don't take the hyperbole at face value, but read with a certain air of skepticism, and infer the in-between stuff. That was my take anyway. Maybe after I read it for a fourth time my opinion will change. :-) |