What Does Super-Investor Peter Thiel Think You Should Read?
Some books to consider include history as well as business strategy. The two cannot be separatedPeter Thiel, whose name is practically synonymous with successful high-tech investing, will be speaking at COSM 2021. He has also offered some thoughts on books worth reading:
Here are three of them, courtesy Kevin Rooke:
➤ The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz (Harper Business 2014): From Thiel: “Every management guide presumes that all great companies follow a formula. But successful startups don’t imitate; they build innovations that can’t be copied. Ben Horowitz knows no recipe guarantees success. He has written the first true guide for protecting a startup from self-sabotage.”
➤ Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder (Basic Books, 2010) From Thiel: “He tells how the Nazis and the Soviets drove each other to ever more murderous atrocities as they fought to dominate Eastern Europe in the 1930s and ’40s. Even as he calculates the death toll painstakingly, Mr. Snyder reminds us that the most important number is one: Each victim was an individual whose life cannot be reduced to the violence that cut it short.”
➤ 7 Powers of Business Strategy by Hamilton Helmer, 2016) From Thiel: “Hamilton Helmer understands that strategy starts with invention. He can’t tell you what to invent, but he can and does show what it takes for a new invention to become a valuable business.”
Rooke offers eighteen more book comments from Peter Thiel for your consideration here.
Note: COSM 2021: Life After Capitalism? Paradoxes of the New World of Technology, at the Bellevue Hyatt Regency, November 10-12, 2021. COSM is the inspiration of Discovery Institute co-founder and technology visionary George Gilder, bringing together the movers and shakers of high tech to ask, Where is this going?, and What’s it all about?
The early adopter fee is available until September 15. Get the good rate by making up your mind.
You may also wish to read: Peter Thiel is speaking in person at COSM, Seattle, November 10. As a world class venture capitalist, he is known for bluntness about what works and what doesn’t. COSM 2021 focuses on the converging technologies, remaking our world. Thiel asks, is new tech soaring or slumping?
