Paul Kasaija

1/26/2021

5:02 PM

Today I finished my first complete book commentary! Thus ends 10 days of constant self-second-guessing, rewriting whole paragraphs, and painfully attempting to package my thoughts in a linear format. I’ll be completely honest in that, as of the time of this writing, there haven’t been many visitors on the Internet or in real life, so it is hard to be the writer, proofreader, and editor all at the same time. A close comparison is how coders need to be teamed up in pairs to reduce errors one coder might fail to see. Well, I’ve been both coders and I’m glad to be done with it.

The best parts of the commentary for me were probably writing this last section because it gives some validation for continuing all the way from chapter 1 with an open mind instead of moving along into something different. In my honest opinion, there is a sense of accomplishment in completion that cannot be felt when doing one small article, making one additional commentary, or looking at things from one perspective alone. That’s why, while in my next articles I don’t plan on doing a commentary again, I will focus on complex issues that are not based on one simple technology or topic. For example, I won’t focus on A for one entire article but I can bring different perspectives on A when writing about A, B, and C. That way, it will be a more rounded opinion, one that’s very hard to do without the input or help of others. Anyhow, because Zero to One is finished, I’m looking forward to writing on new topics in my available time.

The worst part of the commentary was probably last weekend because I realized as I reached chapter 8 that there was a whole lot to get done if I wanted to deliver the completed commentary by this week. The main problem with writing chapters 8-11 was the fact that the business-oriented perspective was already cut and dry, and there was not a lot of opinionated content for me to parse and spin my own perspective on. The topic of secrets and the examples Thiel brings is something that is uniquely his, and from my limited experience, I cannot bring any worthwhile commentary about it without deeply researching theoretical counterpoints. So, it took a few days of sitting in front of the computer after my exercise to get it right. And even after the 8-11 commentary was published, I had to go back and re-edit it (luckily you won’t see how bad previous versions were on the site) and proofread any little mistake that would creep into my screen. Let’s just leave it there, but despite this mulling work I still enjoyed writing it and by the end, I understood Thiel’s work in a more complete manner. If there are any mistakes in my writing, please feel free to write a comment in the blog; I completely understand that I could be wrong on a number of things but I believe that from a persistent review I ironed out a majority of them.

Overall, Thiel is a persuasive and talented writer and I can say with certainty that I’m not qualified to put any definite labels on the book that don’t make note of his creativity and valuable points. What more, the things that I do find disagreement on are generally minor points and don’t detract from the value of the book. I’d suggest that anyone who is interested in making a startup or wants to read about what the “contrarian” future could look like should pick up Zero to One off the shelf and give it a read.

 "In my honest opinion, there is a sense of accomplishment in completion that cannot be felt when doing one small article, making one additional commentary, or looking at things from one perspective alone."