--- ## Highlights The knowledge that your monopoly is temporary should motivate you to invest your profits in developing other new technologies. This kind of creative, technological monopoly that both drives and facilitates technological advancement is what Thiel is talking about when he extols the virtues of monopolies ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/f272c8fb-3cf0-4d2a-bd00-8aa84c9c58cf)) If your product is new and fundamentally different from prior offerings, then by definition it’s not an essential good because people were living without it before you introduced it. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/97a1700c-5356-410b-9f0e-efa82c0b6870)) the monopolies you create by developing new technology can only benefit society, ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/8f4e7d00-c79b-43a4-9607-e661ff82fd21)) Kim and Mauborgne’s discussion of innovation suggests that finding innovative ways to deploy the technology we already have is just as important to society as developing new technologies ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/87cd5c69-8dbd-495d-83cf-370b70958a9c)) One tool that helps you see at a glance just how unique your proposed product would be is their strategy chart. It consists of a two-dimensional line graph: On the horizontal axis, you list the characteristics or capabilities that your proposed product would provide. The vertical axis represents how much of each characteristic your product provides. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/9f80f04f-1225-460f-8c50-008a7d0ac73c)) your proposed product also needs to score at least 10X higher than any other product on at least one characteristic ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/41d99719-9b81-4e5a-9f0c-f2e0ccb4aef8)) Hiring a Great Team ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/d424be33-487f-4ac4-a27e-b04d79aacaa2)) A Great Team ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/2283bca8-c179-4d0f-b849-d36cf6118746)) Progress can be either horizontal or vertical. Horizontal or expansive progress results from duplicating success—going from 1 to n. We can easily envision this kind of progress because it’s much like the present. Vertical or intensive (focused) progress requires originality—going from 0 to 1. It’s more difficult to envision because we’ve never seen it before. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/22c019e8-76fc-41b7-8455-277bd975a81c)) The Path of Progress ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/8aaff7a6-9197-44f2-8f0f-1445911bc6f6)) Thiel clarifies that his book is not a recipe for creating a successful startup—by definition, there can’t be a recipe for a successful startup, because successful startups require original thinking. But his book does provide a starting point for considering the questions that you must answer for your startup to succeed. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/c5423f2c-50fd-4eb6-8db8-54e8f58d2c3c)) Thiel identifies four specific lessons that came to be conventional wisdom in the wake of the dot-com crash: 1. Be satisfied with marginal improvements. Grandiose visions created the dot-com bubble, so don’t let yourself think you can change the world. 2. Manage your company reactively. The bubble was driven by unsustainable spending on the pretense of growing unprofitably in the short term to become hugely profitable in the long term. So, instead of creating bold, long-term plans, you should focus on staying flexible and adapting to situations in the short term. 3. Stick to established markets. The bubble was based on a presumption that the internet would completely reshape the global market landscape, and many internet companies failed to realize the new markets they envisioned. It’s less risky to compete in an existing market than to try to create new markets. 4. Build a product that sells itself. During the bubble, companies wasted a lot of money on advertising, when they should have focused on developing a product that was good enough to spread virally. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/b26c255c-fcf9-4a0f-895b-74042d884b36)) They waste money reinventing each other's products instead of creating new things and overestimate the value of the markets they’re competing for ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/d7c77094-a9e0-47d2-8c55-2be255950818)) It’s better to create something new than fight over what already exists. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/cbc630e8-1d3d-4d23-80f7-3aeed8661871)) Once you’ve dominated a small market sector, slowly expand into related markets that are a bit broader. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/faa1dd33-dca9-4fc3-afb7-feca94c63c1f)) Thus, the four possible perspectives are: Determinate Optimism: You believe you can make the future better than the present, so you plan and work toward a brighter future. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/590a09cf-871f-4e00-a2de-0f2b4889e38d)) only an outlook of determinate optimism will lead you to plan carefully enough and stick to your plans diligently enough to succeed, whether as a startup developing new technology, or as an individual. Even if you’re not an entrepreneur, your long-term goal should be to be the best at something, instead of being a “well-rounded” individual who does what everybody else does and thus competes with everyone at everything. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/50fb32a0-8eb5-4bcd-a69d-74b3efc26621)) Thiel also expresses concern over the long-term societal effects of widespread indeterminate optimism, arguing that it is not a logically tenable position: Why should we expect the future to be better if we’re not doing anything to make it better? ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/2293f638-007d-4b08-88d6-8017ae1eda73))