When one of the big wigs in Silicon Valley openly supports Trump for President, I just had to get curious about his thinking. After all, when Peter Thiel shares his views on entrepreneurial leadership, how not to listen?!
Innovating Entrepreneurial Leadership Thinking
And I have to admit, if there is one book written on Innovation, it is definitely this one. It’s not about the small increments, the updates, fine-tuning, what-have-you-not. The key are the big changes. The ones that really matter. He argues that there is no point in looking for small increments of what exists. On the contrary, he pleads for big changes. Changes that dramatically alter the status quo. Changes that enable you to create your monopoly.
More interestingly, he makes a case against lean startup thinking with minimal viable products and the like.
Most Memorable Quote
“Monopoly is the condition of every successful business” and I have to sneak in a second one: “All happy companies are different: each one earns a monopoly by solving a unique problem”
What this means for Leadership
Let this sink in. What does that mean for leadership? Leaders go first. They do. But they don’t go first in whatever direction. They’re out creating a new currency (and a monopoly around that), a new way of communicating (and a monopoly around that), an operating system (and a monopoly around that). Yes, those are the big things, but they work on any level. Leadership in a state of monopoly is about creating a movement, a space where people want to join you and step into your light.
Leaders go first, leaders create movement, leaders focus on that monopoly that brings together people with a desire to change the world.
Want to discover more about Peter Thiel’s entrepreneurial leadership stance? Buy your copy here:
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“The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them. It’s easier to copy a model than to make something new: doing what we already know how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. Every new creation goes from 0 to 1. This book is about how to get there.”