Quote
“What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”
— Peter Thiel with Blake Masters, in Zero to One (2014) · Zero to One →
Why it was said
Peter Thiel opens Zero to One with this question and says he asks it whenever he interviews someone for a job. Most answers, he notes, are things almost everyone already agrees with; a good answer takes the form 'most people believe x, but the truth is the opposite of x.'
What it actually means
Businesses that copy something that works go from one to many; the ones that matter go from zero to one, and that requires knowing something true that the market has not priced in yet. The question is hard because agreement is comfortable and because a truth few people hold looks, from the outside, exactly like an error. In practice the question asks whether you can say what you believe, why the crowd is wrong, and what you would build on the difference.
How to use it
- 1Write your answer to the question for your own field, and then write the reason most people disagree.
- 2Check whether your current project rests on such a truth or on a consensus everyone can copy.